Missing and Murdered

African American Women

Task Force

Final Report
December 2022

Report authors and contributors:

Dr. Catherine Squires, Dr. Brittany Lewis, Dr. Lauren Martin, Ariana Kopycinski, Ayize James
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Task Force members Advisory Council members
The Task Force membership was specified in the legislation and the The Advisory Council membership criteria was
Commissioner determined the appointees: designed by Research in Action and the network
of the organization and Task Force members was
• Co-chair: Lakeisha Lee
tapped to do outreach until a table was built:
• Co-chair: Dr. Deborah Mitchell, Aurora St. Anthony
Neighborhood Development Corporation • Angela Hooks
• Rep. Ruth Richardson • Dominique Buffett
• Rep. Lisa Demuth • Jennifer Smith
• Sen. Bruce Anderson • Lateesha Coleman
• Sen. Mary Kunesh • Maddie Hodapp
• Beatriz Menanteau, Minnesota Department of Health • Savannah Nelson
• Biiftuu Ibrahim Adam, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension • Symmieona Williams
• Daniel Douglas, Anoka County Sheriff’s Office • Tiffany Roberson
• Evan Gilead, U. S. Attorney’s Office District of MN
• Robert Small, Minnesota County Attorneys Association Organizational Partners
• Artika Roller, Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault Thank you to the organizations we partnered with to
• Lisa Clemons, A Mother’s Love invite Black women and girls to shape change:

• The Zen Bin

Expert Consultants • The Domestic Abuse Project
Thank you to the experts that supported the year-long work: • Anna Marie’s Alliance
• Kamisha Johnson from Amani Healing Services
Interviewees
• Dr. Lauren Martin from the University of Minnesota
Thank you to those that we interviewed for sharing
Thank you to the Advocates for Human Rights Special Consultants to their time and expertise:
the United Nations on the Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination • 20 key informants engaged across interviews
and focus groups to learn from their work in key
• Rosalyn Park, Director, Women’s Human Rights Program agencies and institutions relevant to MMAAW
• Elizabeth Montgomery, Staff Attorney, • 15 Black women and girls engaged across
Women’s Human Rights Program interviews and focus groups to learn from
their lived experiences as survivors of
Research in Action staff interpersonal and systemic violence

Thank you to all the RIA staff that contributed to this work; this report
would not have been possible without you!

• Contributors: Ben Levy, Jocelyn Leung, Ayomide

Ojebuboh, Niyati Panchal, Olivia Reyes, Emma Wu
• Design: Carolyn Szczepanski

Copyright © October 2022. Research in Action. 2

Permission is granted for reproduction of this file, with attribution to Research in Action.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 4
Missing and Murdered African American Women Task Force 7
About Research in Action 7
Missing and Murdered African American Women Advisory Council 9
Task Force and Advisory Council Group Processes 10
Timeline 10
Research Methods 14

Literature Review 20

Key Findings 35
Alignment between Lived Experience and Key Informant Voices 35
Theme 1: Hiring 35
Theme 2: Training 39
Theme 3: Resources 43
Issues Specific to Lived Experience and Key Informant Voices 47

Recommendations 51
Establish a Missing and Murdered African American Women Office 52
Create and Fund Specific Spaces & Resources to Serve Black Women & Girls 54
Develop Culturally Appropriate, Anti-Racist Trainings, Professional Education 54
Hire and Retain African American Staff 55
Design and Support Better Coordination Across Agencies 56
Make Emergency and Long-Term Housing Accessible and Affordable 57
Endnotes 59

Appendix 68
Recommendations from Previous Reports 68
Letter from Task Force Co-Chair 71
Letter from Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner 72

3
 Introduction

Black women and girls are uniquely vulnerable and too easily erased from
public discussions about missing and murdered people. Statistics paint
a devastating picture of the magnitude of the issue: over 60,000 Black
women and girls are missing in the United States, and Black women are
more than twice as likely than their peers to be victims of homicide.

Only 7% but 40% of

of the MN domestic violence
population victims in Minnesota
is Black are Black women
women

Black women are nearly 3 times more likely

to be murdered than white women in Minnesota

By creating the Missing and Murdered African American Women’s Task Force
in 2021, the Minnesota Legislature became the first U.S. state to dedicate
resources to investigate and to consider the measures necessary to reduce
and prevent violence against Black women and girls.

The MMAAW Task Force was charged to examine and report on:

• Systemic causes of violence against African American women and girls

• Appropriate methods of tracking and collecting data
• Policies, practices, and institutions that assist in perpetuating
violence against African American women and girls
• Measures necessary to address and reduce violence
against African American women and girls
• Measures necessary to help victims, their families, and their communities.

4
 Introduction

INTRODUCTION Re/defining terms

Black women and girls are uniquely vulnerable and too easily
erased from public discussions about missing and murdered
people. Organizations such as the Black and Missing Foundation
and media projects such as Our Black Girls, Crime Noir, Black Girl
Gone, and Black Girl Missing are working to honor the stories of
missing and murdered Black women, continuing a long history of
Black women organizing to uplift struggles for equal rights and
protection under the law when state institutions have failed to act.
Statistics paint a devastating picture of the magnitude of the issue
of missing and murdered African American women. Estimates
suggest that over 60,000 Black women and girls are missing in the
United States, and Black women are more than twice as likely than
their peers to be victims of homicide1. According to the National
Crime Information Center (NCIC), in 2020, of the 268,884 girls
and women reported missing, 90,333, or nearly 34 percent, were
Black2, while Black girls and women make up only 15 percent of the
U.S. female population. Nationally, cases involving Black girls and
women stay open four times longer than other cases on average3.
The thousands of Black women and girls missing include abductees,
sex trafficking victims, and people fleeing abuse.
As we reclaim the power of research for impacted communities, we
are also reimagining key terms. Recognizing the power of shared
language and knowledge, we articulate key terms and concepts
shaded in yellow in the text.
African American: Used interchangeably with “Black”
in this report; refers to and includes all people who have self-
identified as a member of the broader African diaspora
Violence: In this report, the term “violence” encompasses/
includes physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and monetary
violence; our employment of “violence” goes beyond the
physical aspect of violence, adverse conditions inflict harm on
individuals and groups. Economic, social, and psychological
violence undermine wellbeing and reduce access to resources
that help people recover from physically violent incidents. This
broader definition of violence also illuminates the importance of
acknowledging the roles that systems play in generating disparities
in violence and healing.

Nationally, Black women have the highest rates of death due to

homicide among women (4.4. per 100,000 compared to 1.5 per
100,000 for white women). According to reports from Time’s Up, 60
15%
of the U.S.
but 34%
of women and
percent of Black women were subjected to coercive sexual contact female
by the time they turned 184.
girls reported
population
is Black missing in 2020
In Minnesota, the statistics are similarly grim: Black women are were Black
murdered at a rate 2.7 times higher than white women5. In 2020,
40 percent of domestic violence homicide victims were Black, while
comprising less than 7 percent of Minnesota’s population.

Understanding the roots of how and why Black women and girls
are not as well protected from violence as white women and girls
requires attention to both historical and present-day manifestations
of interlocking systems of oppression such as racism and sexism.

60,000
Black women and girls are
missing in the United States

5
“You have
to be bleeding
to be heard.” Lived Experience Interview
Zen Bin 1

Reflection Should Black women in Minnesota

questions seeking assistance from local social
service agencies, shelters, or law
enforcement agencies feel that they
can only receive support if they are in an
extreme state of crisis?
What would it look like if Black women
knew that they could seek support
when they are in crisis without having to
already be bleeding to prove they’re in
danger?

6

MISSING & MURDERED AFRICAN AMERICAN
WOMEN (MMAAW) TASK FORCE
During the 2021 Legislative Session, the MMAAW Task Force was
developed by the Minnesota Legislature (Laws of Minnesota 2021,
1st Spec. Sess. Chapter 11, Article 2, Section 50), led by the efforts of
Rep. Ruth Richardson. By legislating this report and the MMAAW Task
Force, the Minnesota Legislature is the first in the nation to dedicate
time and resources to investigating this violence and consider the
measures necessary to support Black women and girls, their families,
and their communities.
The MMAAW Task Force was tasked to
examine and report on:
• Systemic causes of violence against
African American women and girls
• Appropriate methods of tracking and collecting data
• Policies, practices, and institutions that
assist in perpetuating violence against
African American women and girls
• Measures necessary to address and reduce violence
against African American women and girls
• Measures necessary to help victims, their
families, and their communities
The Task Force was convened on November 29, 2021, by the
Department of Public Safety (DPS) and Research in Action (RIA). The
DPS contracted with RIA to conduct the research and prepare the final
report on behalf of the Task Force. The RIA team and Task Force Co-
Chairs Lakeisha Lee and Dr. Deborah Mitchell worked collaboratively
with DPS to facilitate the Task Force and Advisory Council meetings.
This report summarizes the work of the Task Force and Advisory
Council to address the above areas and provides recommendations
based on the information gained from the Equity in Action process
— including insight from nearly 50 interviews, in addition to a deep
literature review and quantitative data analysis — to the Minnesota
Legislature, state agencies, and other entities responsible for
solving the MMAAW injustice in Minnesota and supporting Black
women and girls.
Introduction
Re/defining terms
System: A network made up of individuals, organizations,
and the culture(s) of those organizations that direct action,
create rules, make decisions, and distribute power.
Systemic change: Confronting root causes of issues
(rather than symptoms) by transforming structures, customs,
mindsets, power dynamics, policies and rules. Communities and
organizations have shared goals of solving the social problems
they are impacted by. These groups collaborate and build
collective power to advance systems change.
About Research in Action
Research in Action is a Black queer female-led, multi-racial and
gender-diverse social benefit corporation created to reclaim the
power of research by centering community expertise and driving
actionable solutions for racial justice. We disrupt traditional, top-
down approaches to research and community engagement by
putting community expertise first at every step — from naming the
problem to identifying solutions.
Led by impacted-community members, we leverage and share our
technical skills in research, evaluation and analysis; data innovation;
strategy support; relationship and capacity building; and narrative
shifting to advance concrete and actionable policy and practice
solutions that lead to real and lasting change in our communities.
RIA utilizes the Equity in Action model to approach the successful
execution of each project. Equity in Action intentionally rebalances
power by creating new tables where impacted community
members intentionally outnumber individuals with institutional or
organizational rank so that community members are centered as
essential experts and project leaders throughout any process. Our
process centers community members in defining the issue, making
sense of the data and deciding what should be done about it.
7

Our model is intentionally directed toward actionable outcomes
that lead to tangible, real world changes — and cultivate community
power and authentic, mutually beneficial relationships with partners
after the project has ended.
At RIA, we are co-creating emergent methodologies as an act
of discovery in collaboration with communities. Our approach
combines elements of grounded theory and participatory action
research frameworks. Our process is cyclical, iterative, and firmly
non-extractive. We co-create methods with impacted communities
in part to build awareness and understanding of how cultural beliefs
and values differ between people participating in the project design.
Understanding how culture informs our individual perspectives
or ways of seeing the problem helps us collectively create shared
values, which leads to a cohesive direction for co-creating methods.
Additionally, we collaborate with communities to ensure the tools we
develop are culturally accessible.
Equity in Action Process Model
Introduction
The multiple phases of our Equity in Action model are intentionally
designed to intersect to ensure a core component to our approach:
shared meaning-making. Shared meaning-making is an ongoing
process to ensure consistent collaboration throughout the project
lifecycle. We use our technical skills to:
• create space for all collaborators to develop a shared
understanding of key language to describe the
context and define the problem together
• ensure all collaborators recognize the specific gaps our
research seeks to fill and the specific goals of the project
• at every step in the process, revisit our shared values and
reassess our collective knowledge based on what we’re
learning to ensure our process results in concrete policies
and practices most needed by impacted communities.
Copyright © 2022. Research in Action
8

We resist the notion that quantitative research is more valid than
qualitative research, which creates space for people to share their
direct experiences through interviews and other engagements.
We reject the false premise that if “you can’t measure it, it doesn’t
exist,” because data requires grounded human context to guide and
inform our collective analysis. We deliberately approach research
with mixed methods, valuing quantitative and qualitative data
equally.
We believe that data analysis and data collection overlap in the
process of co-producing knowledge. Our general process involves:
• Collecting data from secondary sources, presenting
the data to impacted communities, and holding space
for impacted communities to determine the accuracy
of the data and what existing data does and does
not answer in relation to the research question.
• Conducting interviews and/or focus groups, completing initial
analyses, and then presenting findings and recommendations
to the community through a data walk. At a data walk, impacted
communities provide feedback on initial findings and share
their perspectives and ideas as they relate to the question.
• Gathering learnings from the data walk and involving them
in the final analyses to develop final project deliverables.
Missing & Murdered African American Women (MMAAW)
Advisory Council
For too long, Black women and girls have been speaking and
sharing their expertise, but they have not been heard. Issues related
to the criminal justice system and its collateral consequences have
been well documented by Research in Action through the 2019
Minnesota Trust Black Women and Girl Town Hall, and the 2020
Time of Reckoning forum.
By contracting with RIA, the state of Minnesota embraced a model
of community engagement and participatory policymaking that
institutional actors rarely invest in or commit to. The state also
embraced RIA’s requirement that an MMAAW Advisory Council
guide the process. This Advisory Council was made up of Black
Introduction
Re/defining terms
Qualitative research: Information that can not be
counted, but data that can be observed and recorded through
direct observation, one on one interviews, focus groups, and
other methods.
Quantitative research: information that is counted,
measured and replicated to model or predict change or impact
often through charts or graphs.
Lived experience: First-hand, everyday experience
living a particular reality; someone with lived experience is
thus determined to be the expert, and as those closest to the
problem, they are the closest to the solution.
We are discerning and intentional in creating mixed-method
approaches that uproot racist presumptions and cultivate iterative
processes that acknowledge lived experience as rigorous and
actionable data and create power for and accountability with
impacted communities.
women and girls that have experienced violence, abduction, and/
or trafficking, and family members who have lost a loved one to this
violence.
As the guiding body, the Advisory Council gave direction to the
larger Task Force. As such, this process was deliberately designed
to center the expertise and knowledge from Black women to
help us better understand the causes of violence and to develop
the practices and policies to increase community wellbeing and
reduce harm. RIA supported the Task Force in lending its expertise
and supporting the cultivation of consensus building among and
between both bodies.
9

Task Force and Advisory
Council Group Processes
Research in Action utilized the Equity in Action model to design
strategic Task Force and Advisory Council activities to maximize
participation, partnership development, shared learning, and
impact. Our discussions served to identify the context of MMAAW
and gaps in our collective understandings of the response in our
state. Our meetings centered the experiences of Black women and
girls to co-develop the mixed-methods tools and make shared
meaning of the findings.
In these ways, the Task Force and Advisory Council were integral
to the framing and design of the data collection plan — and
co-producing winnable policy and practice solutions aimed at
protecting and supporting Black women and girls.
The Task Force met every other month for half-day meetings. Due
to COVID-19, the first three meetings were held remotely. The
subsequent Task Force meetings were hybrid. The Advisory Council
met every month for 2-hour meetings. Meetings were primarily
conducted via Zoom with two hybrid meetings to provide a chance
for both the Task Force and Advisory Council to meet face to face.
These hybrid sessions aimed to build rapport, make sense of new
and existing data to inform RIA’s data collection, and develop shared
understanding and language as a collaborative.
There were strategic and critical points of overlap for the two groups
once all data was collected. In September, October, and November
the two groups met to process findings, create shared meaning for
data analysis, and articulate recommendations.
Introduction
Timeline
The totality of violence Black women and girls have experienced
cannot be addressed within the limited time and resources the Task
Force and Advisory Council had to address it. The data collection
process was hindered by the timeline, as outreach, conducting
interviews and focus groups, and analyzing data had to happen
within an aggressive timeframe.
In total RIA had only 12 months to complete the entirety of the
work, which included:
• Convening the Task Force
• Building the Advisory Council
• Establishing rapport and trust between the
Task Force, Advisory Council, and RIA
• Developing shared understanding of existing literature and
identifying the gaps, building statewide partnerships
• Refining the research approach to respond
to the scope of the charge
• Building distinct outreach efforts cross the state
• Executing data collection across multiple sites
• Receiving, coding and cleaning all data
• Holding space for Task Force and Advisory
Council to wrestle with their goals, analysis
and fostering understanding of the data
• Drafting each section of the report for feedback
from the Task Force and Advisory Council
• Presenting data analysis to the community for feedback
• Finalizing recommendations in partnership
with Task Force and Council
• Revising and producing the final draft of the report
As such, this report does not provide information to address the
entire scope of MMAAW and violence against Black women and
girls in Minnesota. The recommendations will not fully address
these injustices either. It is going to take many years of intentional,
community-led, and sustained efforts to change the systems,
policies, and practices that contribute to MMAAW and violence
against Black women and girls in Minnesota.
10
STRUCTURE AND PROCESS
The Missing and Murdered African Black women and girls are uniquely
American Women’s Task Force vulnerable and often erased from
was developed by the Minnesota public discussions about missing
Legislature in 2021 to investigate and murdered people. For years,
violence against Black women and impacted communities have been
girls and consider the measures elevating this injustice and pushing
necessary to support them, their for solutions — with little support
families, and their communities. from institutions of power.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety In contrast to traditional top-down approaches,

convened the task force and contracted with Research in Action convened a table of community
Research in Action to conduct research and experts with lived experience to co-create and
prepare the final report. guide the task force process.

Task Advisory
Force Council
Created by state legislation, Created by RIA for Black women
including representatives and girls who have experienced
from government, law violence, abduction, and/or
enforcement, health and trafficking; and family members
advocacy organizations who have lost a loved one
RIA convened and
connected the Task Force
and Advisory Council to create shared
understanding and co-develop the research approach

20 Key 15 Lived
Informant Experience
Interviews Literature Interviews
review

Findings & Report

In addition to task force, advisory council and interview participants, RIA invited a broader set of
stakeholders and community members to review and contribute to the findings and report, as well.

11
TIMELINE
Task Force Meeting (project overview, shared values, roles)
Nov ‘21
Outreach to Advisory Council members

Dec ‘21 Advisory Council Meeting (project overview, shared values and definition of the problem)

Task Force Meeting (introduce members and goals of advisory council, develop consensus)
Jan ‘22
Advisory Council Meeting (explore history and national case studies, narrow focus on institutions and strategies)

Feb ‘22 Advisory Council Meeting (identify gaps research aims to fill, final report vision, framework for literature review)

Task Force Meeting (identify institutions/policies needing further exploration, discuss key informant interviews and
March ‘22 draft root causes of violence document)
Advisory Council Meeting (develop and refine research questions, finalize research plan)

April ‘22 Advisory Council Meeting (define research methods, develop core interview questions)

Task Force Meeting (present full data collection plan, discuss key informant interviews and potential recommendations)
May ‘22
Advisory Council Meeting (review data collection plan, finalize data collection tools, conduct interview training)

Interviews with Key Informants

June ‘22 Advisory Council Meeting (make meaning of initial findings, share strategy for interviews with Black women and girls,
discuss outreach strategy)

Interviews with Key Informants

Interviews and focus groups with folks with Lived Experience
July ‘22
Thematic data coding and data analysis
Task Force + Advisory Council Joint Meeting (discuss literature review, preliminary data analysis, MMAAW office)

Interviews and focus groups with folks with Lived Experience

Aug ‘22
Thematic data coding and data analysis

Task Force + Advisory Council Joint Meeting (shared meaning making of key informant, lived experience data)
Sept ‘22
Report writing

Report writing; draft report content sent to Advisory Council and Task Force for review
Oct ‘22 Data walk: Research collaborators and community members review findings and analysis, provide additional context
and framing, reflect together on data, and narrow in on priorities moving forward

Nov ‘22 Task Force + Advisory Council Joint Meeting (present recommendations for their comment)

Final Task Force + Advisory Council Joint Meeting

Dec ‘22
Report submitted

12
“I have to take off from work to go
downtown to this precinct and make
this report. And then, while I’m down
there I’m asked ‘Why did you wait
so long to do this?’ And then I have
to explain everything while also
remembering that I am in a police
station, so I can’t get angry.” Lived Experience Interview

Reflection What would we need to change about

questions the culture of our local precincts in order
for families to feel they will be heard
and not misunderstood when they try to
report a loved one missing?
What if they were greeted by a counselor
on staff to support families who report a
missing person?

13

RESEARCH METHODS
Beyond identifying relevant existing literature and pulling specific
information from databases, Research in Action, the Task Force,
and the Advisory Council collaboratively developed a robust data
collection plan with one-on-one interviews and focus groups to talk
to two groups of people: key informants and Black women and girls.
• Key informants (KI): Experts in key systems or sectors
whose specialized knowledge related to Black women
and girls experiencing violence, being murdered,
or reported missing supports the development
of recommendations for the legislature
• Black women & girls with lived experience
(LE): Women and girls who have self-identified as a
members of the broader African diaspora and have
first-hand, everyday experience of violence
Throughout the initial meetings in late 2021 and early 2022,
both groups identified the importance of gaining insights from
individuals that provide direct services and supports to Black
women and girls, in particular providers for those that have been
sexually exploited, and experts that represent institutions that
impact MMAAW, like law enforcement, the courts, and human
services. The Task Force and Advisory Council both articulated
very early in the data collection tool development process the
importance of speaking with Black women and girls about their
experiences in the state of Minnesota as well.
Black Women and Girls with Lived
Experience
The purpose of interviews and focus groups with Black women
and girls was to learn from Black women and girls who have
experienced violence by someone or by systems, institutions, or
processes that were in place to help or support them in gaining
access to vital information or resources, but were let down, denied,
or felt ignored.
The Advisory Council members articulated very specific systems that
impact them. This revealed a specific focus outside of understanding
the systems, policies, and practices that impact MMAAW. This focus
centered on institutions that historically police, track, and harm
Research Methods
Black women and girls, even at times into violence that leads to
cases of MMAAW. These systems, initially identified by the Advisory
Council, were housing, child protection, and education. The Task
Force members overwhelmingly agreed but requested that the
focus on child protection be expanded to child welfare systems to
represent more experiences.
To ensure that we had shared language and understanding,
the Advisory Council co-created a definitions for violence and a
discussion of the many systems involved in MMAAW:
We define violence as: physical, emotional,
mental, spiritual, and monetary violence.
This definition helps us to see that long before, and too often long
after, someone experiences physical violence, adverse conditions
inflict harm on individuals and groups. Economic, social, and
psychological violence undermine wellbeing and reduce access
to resources that help people recover from violent incidents. This
broader definition of violence also illuminates the importance of
acknowledging the role that systems play in generating disparities
in violence and healing.
We discussed a range of systems, institutions, and processes that
should help or support Black women and girls facing violence.
These included: supportive or affordable housing, child welfare
programming or processes, public, technical or vocational
education, and social services among others.
Data collection with Black women and girls focused on changes
needed to ensure institutions treat Black women and girls as
humans with dignity and respect. The Task Force, RIA and Advisory
Council members executed interviews and focus groups through
partnerships with:
• The Zen Bin in North Minneapolis
• The Domestic Abuse Project in Minneapolis
• Anna Marie’s Alliance in St. Cloud
14

Key Informants from Relevant Sectors
The purpose of interviews and focus groups with key informants
was to learn from experts in key systems or sectors identified by
the Advisory Council and Task Force whose specialized knowledge
related to Black women and girls experiencing violence, being
murdered, or reported missing will support the development of
recommendations for the Minnesota Legislature.
The sectors included:
• Service providers offering support to victims of
domestic violence, sexual violence, and sexual
exploitation, and the support services ranged from
legal, housing, advocacy, health, and other supports
• Attorneys with experience working
homicide and trafficking cases
• Law enforcement agents specializing in homicide,
missing person, and trafficking cases
• Experts in the housing, education, and child welfare systems
RIA executed these interviews and focus groups from
recommendations by the Task Force and Advisory Council about who
to include. Some recommendations specified individuals within
these systems, while other recommendations directed RIA to recruit
participants from specific organizations.
Data Limitations
The Task Force and Advisory Council have named the importance in
making connections and developing partnerships to move this work
from a report to actionable change, yet RIA experienced very real
barriers in data collection outreach.
Research in Action reached out to many different organizations
across the state, including across the Twin Cities metro area, in
Duluth, and in St. Cloud, to connect with Black women and girls.
However, experts at both tables discussed a crisis mentality that
is consistent in many service providing spaces, particularly for
domestic and sexual violence — resulting in minimal response
despite numerous contacts. When RIA was able to connect with
Black women and girls with lived experience, crises in real time and
structural barriers led to non-responses, last-minute cancellations,
or no-shows for interviews.
Research Methods
For our outreach in Duluth, specifically, we encountered an
interesting tension point. We successfully contacted the Director
of Human Rights that RIA worked with to convene a group of Black
women community leaders working in transitional housing with
youth, reentry programming, and local affinity group leader to
discuss a partnership to ensure the voices of Black women and girls
in Duluth were heard in the report. While each woman individually
saw the value of the work we were doing, all the women in the room
expressed deep concern about how the Duluth community would
react to a project focused on MMAAW and their individual capacity
to be stewards of the work on the ground. They expected hostility
and some discomfort from their local community by centering the
experiences of Black women and girls.
Because of time and other constraints, some data collection ideas
were not executed to their full potential, including:
• focus groups with Black men and boys to hear
what they would want to become the best
allies they can to Black women and girls
• focus groups with law enforcement officers to
understand their experiences working within
departments with and without missing person units
• recruitment of more LGBTQIA participants
While our recruitment and outreach efforts resulted in interviews
with 20 key informants and 15 Black women and girls with lived
experience, all with a variety of expertise, experiences, and opinions
of MMAAW and solutions, we recognize that the information within
this report could vary from those we were not able to engage with
for this project.
Data analysis process
DeAnna Hoskins, President of Just Leadership, USA, reminds us:
"Those who are directly impacted are closest to the problem and
closest to the solution, but … have been farthest from resources
and power.” Black women and girls have been objects of policy
and not agents of policymaking. Research in Action centers
community expertise to correct this pattern and aligns with Black
feminist frameworks for unveiling insights that can be overlooked
when Black women are not centered as experts on their own lived
experiences.
15

Centering those who have been most harmed or by the current
system provides crucial knowledge to shed light on why policies
and agencies created to protect women have not done so for Black
women and girls. Therefore, our data analysis began with the Lived
Experience interview data. Engaging in thematic analysis of the data
provided by participants with lived experience first allowed us to
analyze data provided by key informants to see where similarities
and differences existed between the two groups
We were also mindful as we analyzed the data that nine of the
20 Key Informants are Black-identifying, eight of whom are Black
women. As the following sections will show, in many places there is
strong resonance between the Lived Experience data and the Black
women Key Informant data.
Researching a Known
Problem
Early in this work, Task Force and Advisory Council members
felt ambivalence about launching a task force to verify what has
previously been documented in other reports as well as in their own
community histories.
One Task Force member said: “We have a lot of research in our
community… Especially in Minnesota we have research and the
information about the disparities is there. I don’t see us moving that
information to an actionable plan.”
In response, another said: “Research has been used as a weapon
in Black and brown communities. One of the opportunities before
us today is to turn this research model on its head and work with
participatory community research… Not [just] focused on the data
that's already there but helping the community determine what we
are focusing on. What are the policy steps that should be enacted?
What can we do to put a structure in place? Then we can define
action steps with the report.”
Research Methods
This tension existed throughout the work, with some feeling that
this research had been done before and a report to the Legislature
wasn’t enough, while others saw this as an opportunity to learn
more about gaps the community is experiencing and find solutions.
Some even felt the groups could be doing more to organize and
advocate for change. Depending on the perspective of the Task
Force or Advisory Council member, there were challenges with this
work technically being tied to research and a final report.
We approached researching a known problem that has been
heavily quantified by incorporating qualitative methods such as
key informant interviews and focus groups with people with lived
experience to contextualize understandings that are not clear based
on what numeric data illustrate.
We identified key constructs of interest and developed questions
with impacted community members involved in the research design
process. These questions are based on what impacted community
members determine to be unanswered or unclear from existing
quantitative data. Questions are typically open-ended and designed
to promote brave and honest sharing of ideas and perspectives.
Additionally, conversations with people from lived experience
creates space for people most impacted by a problem to drive the
solutions.
We sought subject matter saturation within a limited time frame
not quantitative generalizability for the purpose of identifying key
themes and pain points that we could develop tangible winnable
policy and practice solutions around for action now guided by the
legislature.
16
 Research Methods

KEY INFORMANT INTERVIEWS

Gender 15

8 of the 15 women were

2 3 Black women
No response Male Female

Age no Service providers (7)

response
Legal, Trafficking, Sexual / Domestic
Violence, Male programming
3 60+ Systems Professionals (6)
Child welfare, Education, Housing,
KIs’ Work Legal, Data
Sector
5 50-59 Law Enforcement (4)
Officers and/or support staff
Government (1)
Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women
4 40-49 and Relatives Office

5 30-39

1 21-29
2 No response

17
 Research Methods

LIVED EXPERIENCE INTERVIEWS

3 St. Cloud

1 Coon Rapids
Brooklyn Park 3
1 Brooklyn Center

Minneapolis 4 2 St. Paul

Gender / LGBTQ? Age

1 50+

All 15
identify 6 40-49
as women

5 30-39
1 identifies as LGBTQ

3 20-29

18
CHANGING THE NARRATIVE
An Asset- versus Deficit-Based Approach

Using an asset-based approach, we co-developed the central

research questions, interview/focus guides, and demographic
data collection forms to disrupt traditional deficit based research
approaches that assume Black women and girls are the problem
or objects of study. An asset-based approach engages with Black
women and girls first as valued members of their communities
with the ability to identify solutions to their own problems.

For example, we incorporated different demographic questions

into our initial intake and consent process to help our
interviewees enter a mindset of articulating their own value and
imagining what could be possible for their futures.

For instance, we asked our interviewees to personally describe

themselves and how they believe other see them (top image).
These descriptors show the multiple different aspects of our
interviewees’ identities and how they hold those identities close
as they live their lives.

We also asked our interviewees what they do to practice self

care (middle image). This was a deeply reflective question, and
it often turned into a discussion about the mental and physical
capacity needed to exist as a Black woman and how self care can
be difficult to achieve.

And lastly, we asked our interviewees to discuss what brings

them joy (bottom image) to imagine what kinds of things they
prioritize in life and get them into a head space of joy and
abundance.

19
“My stomach hurt a lot when I was
a kid but was told it was ‘attention
seeking behavior.’ My case manager,
when I was briefly in foster care,
took me to the doctor… I lived with
this pain for decades until doctors
discovered parts of my intestine were
dying. I had the whole thing removed.
Lived Experience
I had to advocate for myself.” Interview

Reflection What would a healthcare system that

questions validated the experiences Black women
and girls share about their health look
and feel like? How might racial health
disparities decrease as a result?

20

From Root Causes to Present Day Realities:
LITERATURE REVIEW ON VIOLENCE AGAINST
BLACK WOMEN AND GIRLS
This review of literature explains the historical roots of contemporary
racial disparities that harm Black women and girls, with particular
attention to the development of specific stereotypes that distort
public perceptions of Black women and girls. This overview also
defines the concept of intersectionality, which highlights how
racism and sexism simultaneously produce unequal outcomes for
Black women and girls.
Literature Review
Next, we provide a summary of research on four key areas that
contribute to the vulnerability of Black women and girls to violence:
work and wages, housing, health, and criminal justice. Looking at
these systems with an intersectional lens makes clear how historical
discrimination and harmful stereotypes shape conditions where
Black women and girls are more vulnerable to violence.
21
 Literature Review

Structural Racism: care to the criminal justice system — developed policies and
practices based on these false beliefs, and these beliefs resonated
Rooted in Slavery with cultural stereotypes of Black women.

Racism in the United States is anchored in the practices, policies,

legal and cultural regimes set in place by race-based slavery. During Stereotypes and
the colonial era and after the American Revolution, custom and law “controlling images”
designated enslaved Black people as property with no human or
civil rights, and all other Black people as non-citizens. The system of of Black women
slavery also depended upon the specific exploitation and abuse of
The idea that Black people are natural inferiors and subordinates to
Black women in two ways: (1) as enslaved laborers, sharing that fate
white people was (and is) deeply interwoven into key foundational
with enslaved Black men; and (2) as producers of future enslaved
laborers. The law decreed that children of enslaved Black womenaspects of educational, governmental, medical, and socio-cultural
documents, practices, and core beliefs. The systemic aspects of
would “follow the condition of the mother.” This incentivized white
racism — slave codes, disenfranchisement, whites-only schools,
men to rape Black women and/or to force them into sexual relations
with enslaved men to produce more slaves that could be worked etc. — were normalized by cultural beliefs. White supremacy holds
or sold. Because they were considered property and had no legalthat Black (and all other non-white peoples) are inferior to white
people and are not fit to engage in society as full and equal citizens.
rights, no court would consider it possible for a Black woman to be a
victim of rape6. Even in states where slavery was abolished and territories, like
Minnesota, where slavery
Moreover, Black mothers and fathers was not legal, even free
had no rights to keep or protect their For the first two centuries of Black people did not enjoy
children; slaveholders could abuse the American experiment, by the rights or privileges of
enslaved children as they wished or white citizens, and anti-
law Black women were abused Black beliefs held sway.
sell them to make a profit. From their
labor in the fields and houses, to through forced labor, sexual
their own children being sold away violence, forced childbirth, and Historians claimed Africa
to white doctors using their bodies to had no history or culture,
family separation. and therefore only
experiment in gynecological surgery7,
Black women’s lives and bodies were Europe had contributed
literally exploited in every way possible. to progress in art, science,
and governance. Scientists and doctors asserted that Black people
For the first two centuries of the American experiment, by law Black had smaller brains, stronger muscles, and thicker skin, thus
women were abused through forced labor, sexual violence, forced requiring brutally violent punishment and containment to prevent
childbirth, and family separation. Under slavery, a Black woman's them from lashing out10. Slaves who tried to escape were said to be
value was determined by her future profitability, her ability to insane, victims of “drapetomania,” a disease caused by masters who
work, and her potential to bear children8. White exploitation of were too lenient with the lash11.
Black women’s bodies and labor was not just allowed by law, but
also naturalized and reinforced by a large, expansive set of white The ideology of white supremacy also insisted Black women were
supremacist theories, like eugenics, the “scientifically erroneous not feminine in the way white women were. Patricia Hill Collins
and immoral theory of ‘racial improvement’ and ‘planned catalogs the main stereotypes of Black women12 that emerged
breeding,’ which gained popularity during the early 20th century” from slavery: the Jezebel, the Sapphire, the Mammy, and the
and was taught and practiced by academics in fields from medicine Pickanninny. The Jezebel’s hypersexuality and lack of morals
to anthropology9. Multiple institutions — from education to health justified widespread sexual assaults; the Sapphire’s stubbornness,

22
 Literature Review

loudness, and other lack of feminine refinement justified brutal white-dominated research institutions and government officials
physical work and punishment to keep her in line; the Mammy’s have likewise pathologized Black women’s workforce involvement
unselfish devotion to the white family suggested she enjoyed being with a combination of the Mammy and Sapphire stereotypes: the
a subordinate and cared more about white children than her own; Matriarch. The Matriarch stereotype is a Black woman who cannot
and the Pickaninny, a rowdy, stupid child, needed not education properly take care of her family because she works outside the
but whippings to learn how to work and know her place. Black home, thereby emasculating her husband and male children.
women of any age were deemed unfeminine and inferior to white The infamous Moynihan Report solidified this stereotype with
women, who were held up as exemplars of purity and motherhood its theory that overly independent Black women were the source
deserving of men’s respect and protection13. of disproportionate levels of Black poverty because they weren’t
capable of creating nuclear families with male breadwinners.
The Civil War and end of slavery did not destroy the influence Policymakers used the Black matriarch theory to justify a raft of
of white supremacy or dismantle these stereotypes; after a brief policies to restrict welfare provisions, deflecting attention from
period of Reconstruction, Jim Crow law and vigilante violence structural barriers to fair employment, wages, and education for
cut short access to the ballot and education for the majority of Black people19.
African Americans, who still resided in former Confederate states14.
Moreover, in the North, including Minnesota, racial segregation was Another updated stereotype that distorts the public’s opinion of
the norm in education, employment, and housing15. At the same Black women is the “Welfare Queen.” The Welfare Queen is lazy
time, eugenicists were prominent and promiscuous, and
in fields from medicine to sociology has multiple children
to anthropology, extending not because she loves
the reign of scientific racism in
These stereotypes of Black them, but to access public
universities . New popular culture
16 women dehumanize and benefits. Popularized in the
forms like minstrel shows, film, criminalize them as essentially 1980s20, the Welfare Queen
radio, advertising, and comic books corrupt and immoral: young signified undeserving
extended the reach and amplified Black women getting
circulation of racist stereotypes. Black women or girls who made rich on taxpayers' backs.
Aunt Jemima sold pancakes; their bodies sexually available The stereotype generates
blackface performers grotesquely (i.e., promiscuous), and mothers opposition to a wide
mocked Black people on stage and range of public assistance
screen; and D.W. Griffith’s Birth of
who reproduced a culture of programs, such as food and
A Nation glorified Ku Klux Klan dependency (i.e., crack babies). housing assistance21.
violence against Black people in its
climactic scenes17. These stereotypes of Black
women dehumanize and criminalize them as essentially corrupt
These harmful stereotypes and beliefs about dangerous, hyper- and immoral: young Black women or girls who made their bodies
sexual, irresponsible, and lazy Black people continue to negatively sexually available (i.e., promiscuous), and mothers who reproduced
impact Black women and girls’ lives today. Black girls are often a culture of dependency (i.e., crack babies). Policymakers regularly
viewed as being more knowledgeable about sex and less in need of redeploy these stereotypes to argue against public assistance
protection from predators as compared to their white peers18. This programs22.
false belief can be traced as far back as slavery in the U.S., where
slave owners justified their rape of enslaved women, oftentimes Media and public policy narratives consistently ignore or downplay
beginning when they were children, by claiming that Black women the many systemic barriers that exist for Black women to “pull
were Jezebels with insatiable sexual appetites. themselves up by their bootstraps,” the ideal that nuclear families
and individuals should provide for themselves through hard work

23
 Literature Review

alone.23 However, as the sections on housing and work (below) barriers Black women and girls’ face in society and the need for
demonstrate, both private sector and government entities actively race-and gender-specific policies to dismantle those barriers. For
undermine Black families’ and individuals’ ability to build the type example, Crenshaw discovered how, because laws referred to
of intergenerational wealth white families have gained to create a employment discrimination as either based in gender or race,
stable financial foundation.24 Black woman employees who experienced job discrimination were
“unseen” by the court system that insisted they make claims based
Though laws have changed over the decades, sociologist Manning on one characteristic, though their experiences were due to both
Marable reminds us that “the deep structure of white prejudice, their race and gender.28
power, and privilege forming the undemocratic foundation of
most human interactions has not fundamentally been altered.”25 When we look at the issue of MMAAW through an intersectional
Even after the major legal reforms that emerged from the 1950s lens, we can see how race and gender operate simultaneously
and 1960s civil rights movement, the “deep structure” Marable within systems, generating disparities between Black women
references continues to impact the lives of all Black people across and girls and their racially privileged white counterparts. These
different systems and with different impacts based on other disparities leave Black women and girls more vulnerable to
intersecting identities, such as gender. violence than white women and girls. Four systems that contribute
significantly to that vulnerability are work, housing, health, and the
criminal justice system.
Intersectionality
Intersectionality, a concept first developed by Work and Wages
legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw,26 is a crucial
tool for understanding Black women and girls’ experiences and Though Black women have historically worked
the disparities around missing and murdered women and girls. outside of their homes at higher rates than white
Crenshaw and other Black feminist scholars demonstrated that
women, from the end of slavery to the present day they earn less
analysis of race or gender alone is insufficient to explain and
and have fewer opportunities for advancement in the workplace
understand Black women’s historical and contemporary struggles
than their white peers. This disparity arises from the exploitation
for equality. Instead, observers need to examine the ways race
and devaluation of Black women’s labor that began in slavery, as
and gender, as well as class, sexuality, and other factors, operate
described in the previous sections. Since then, Black women and
simultaneously to shape social men have struggled to access
outcomes for different groups and participate in labor markets,
and individuals. where they are often expected
Crenshaw and other Black to work twice as hard but earn
Intersectionality enables us feminist scholars demonstrated much less than white workers.
to recognize the fact that that analysis of race or gender
perceived group membership Wage disparities for Black men
alone is insufficient to explain
can make people vulnerable and women, as well as lack of
to various forms of bias, yet and understand Black women’s inherited wealth set the stage
because we are simultaneously historical and contemporary for historically high numbers of
members of many groups, struggles for equality. Black women in the labor force. By
our complex identities can 1880, over 30 percent of married
shape the specific way we each Black women and over 70 percent
experience that bias.27 of single Black women worked
outside the home, compared to only 7 percent of married white
Legal and policy frameworks which refer to the category “women women and 23 percent of single White women.29 Until the 1960s, a
and girls” can sometimes fail to account for the experiences and majority of Black women worked in farm labor, domestic service, and

24
 Literature Review

to a lesser extent, in the lowest paying industrial jobs. Black women The combination of race and sex discrimination results in the
have historically been limited to “Black women’s work” that paid less continued concentration of Black women in the lowest-paying
than that performed by white women. 30 occupations in the general labor market or in gender-segregated
markets such as teaching, social work, and nursing. Research also
Between 1940 and 1960, technological changes and the Great demonstrates that pervasive wage penalties based on occupational
Migration of African Americans into the Northern and Western racial and gender compositions are not rooted in differences in work
regions of the country helped facilitate some Black women’s quality or productivity, but rather in social norms and stereotypes.38
transition to growing and higher-paying, white-female-dominated
occupations in health care, clerical work, and other service sectors.31
Occupational segregation by gender is significant in Minnesota,
New civil rights protections and federal enforcement of affirmative
as state and national workforce development programs reinforce
action between 1960 and 1980 resulted in further increases of gender and race-based occupational segregation. The Women’s
Black women in clerical occupations, and expanded access to Foundation of Minnesota found that women are more likely to
management, professional, and technical occupations. Even withwork in care and service-related occupations that are underpaid.
this new access, however, consistent patterns of discrimination
Women account for over 75 percent of employment in healthcare,
meant that Black women were still overrepresented in the lowest
personal care, and service occupations, and more than 70 percent
paying jobs and had median earnings 21 percent below white of employment in office and administrative support, education,
women’s.32 Indeed, the Center for American Progress estimated that
and library occupations.39 Occupational segregation results in
over the course of their careers, African American women lose more
lower wages for women in Minnesota with workers in female-
than $950,000 to the wage gap.33 dominated sectors earning $18 per hour, while workers in male-
dominated sectors earn $21
Beginning in the 1980s per hour. While one in five
through 2000, progress slowed. The Center for American Progress of Minnesota’s white women
While African American women work in service jobs, more
estimated that over the course
increased their average levels than one in three African
of education and increased of their careers, African American American women work in
their numbers in managerial women lose more than $950,000 service fields.40
and professional occupations, to the wage gap.
many administrative support According to the Center for
and service occupations Urban and Regional Affairs,
became characterized by an though Black women today
over-representation of Black are carrying the largest
women.34 Even Black women with university degrees tend to economic weight in their communities, they have been impacted
be concentrated in jobs that have below-average wages.35 Since the most by the significant gaps between white and Black economic
2000, there has been little change in the reduction of occupational success. Although Black women across the nation and in Minnesota
segregation. In 2016, on average, 56 percent of Black women are growing small businesses faster than any of their peer groups,
would need to change occupations to achieve occupational equity male or female, they are not retaining or expanding those
with white men.36 businesses while often holding multiple forms of employment.41
This means that Black women are denied opportunities to build
“Even controlling for education, Black women still earn less savings and other forms of wealth that can be used in old age
than their white male counterparts. Among those with a or passed down to future generations. The housing system
bachelor’s degree, Black women only earn 65 percent of what exacerbates income and wealth inequality, and leads to negative
comparable white men do, for instance. And among people intergenerational impacts on Black women and girls’ economic
with advanced degrees, Black women earn 70 percent of what security.
white men do. In fact, Black women with advanced degrees
have median weekly earnings less than white men with only
a bachelor’s degree.”37

25

Housing
One of the legacies of labor exploitation and
discrimination is less opportunity to build savings to
pay for quality housing. Safe, affordable housing is one of the most
important factors in quality of life and protection from violence. In
the United States, homeownership is one of the main vehicles for
individuals and families to accrue and pass down wealth, providing
further stability across generations. However, Black individuals
and families have been excluded from equal housing and property
investment opportunities by segregation, discriminatory landlords,
threats of violence, redlining, undervaluation, restrictive covenants,
and predatory lending
practices.42 These practices were
supported, tacitly and explicitly, Though Minnesota has one of
by state and federal agencies.
the nation’s highest overall
The Federal Housing homeownership
Administration (FHA) used is also home to the fourth
redlining to mark Black-majority
largest disparity in BIPOC
neighborhoods as “high risk”
for federal-backed home
homeownership
loans. Between 1934 and largest income gap
1962, “98 percent of federally Black and white households.
backed FHA loans nationally
went to white buyers.” This
resulted in a system where
both the private sector and government were actively subsidizing
white homeownership while erecting “barriers to exclude Black
households from the same opportunities.”43 In the same vein,
counties and states allowed deeds to list restrictive covenants
that forbade white homeowners from selling property to Black or
Jewish families. Thus, racist policies and practices severely limited
the housing options for Black people regardless of income levels. A
2020 study by the Brookings Institute estimates that due to these
and other practices of economic discrimination, “the net worth of a
typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black
family” today.44
Unjust housing policies and practices have had particularly
devastating consequences for the safety and stability of Black
households in Minnesota. Racial covenants were employed in
Minnesota housing contracts since 1910 and persisted until they
were decreed illegal in 1962. Beyond legal discrimination, white
Literature Review
homeowners and neighborhood associates used intimidation
and violence to prevent and deter middle class Black buyers from
purchasing homes. The case of the Lee family is the most infamous
of these. In 1931, a mob of 4,000 white people organized to try to
force the Lees from their home, sending a clear message to other
Black homebuyers in the process.45
Though Minnesota has one of the nation’s highest overall
homeownership rates, it is also home to the fourth largest disparity
in BIPOC homeownership and the second largest income gap
between Black and white households.46 Furthermore, BIPOC
households are almost twice as likely as white ones to be “cost-
burdened,” which is when a
household pays more than
30 percent of its total income
on housing costs, leaving less
money for basic needs like food,
rates, it medicine, and transportation.47
Despite reforms like the 1968 Fair
Housing Act, studies and lawsuits
and the second reveal that realtors regularly steer
between Black homebuyers away from
white-majority neighborhoods.
Private lenders offer Black and
Latinx mortgage applicants
subprime and other risky loan
products even when their income and credit scores qualify for
lower interest and federally backed loans.48 Recent research reports
emphasize that housing inequality harms future generations:
“All of this matters because wealth confers benefits that go
beyond those that come with family income. Wealth is a
safety net that keeps life from being derailed by temporary
setbacks and the loss of income… Family wealth allows
people (especially young adults who have recently entered
the labor force) to access housing and safe neighborhoods
with good schools, thereby enhancing the prospects of their
own children… In addition, the fact that intergenerational
transfer of wealth is lightly taxed means that historical
gaps persist over generations. Furthermore, inadequate
investments in the public goods that facilitate economic
mobility make it harder to erase past gaps.”49
26

These inequalities mean Black women and their families are more
likely to experience greater economic hardship if they lose a job,
have a health crisis, or try to help other family members get back
on their feet.50 Minnesota’s State of the State’s Housing 2019 report
and the House Select Committee on Racial Justice noted that racial
housing disparities “created severe and damaging impacts that
disproportionately impact BIPOC Minnesotans.”51
The picture is particularly bleak for lower income renters. Minnesota
has a serious shortage of affordable housing for sale or rent.
Government resources to subsidize rental housing have decreased,
and enforcement of codes to prevent landlord abuse and evictions
are inconsistent. Add to that the toxic combination of income
inequality, skyrocketing rent prices, and lack of government
enforcement of existing laws, and you have more people at risk
of having to choose between housing, food, and health care.52
Observers argue that Minnesota is in a housing crisis, “with fewer
and fewer affordable options available, the demand continues to
rise.” At the same time, government resources to support renters, as
well as shortages in resources like EBT and other financial programs
exacerbate the crisis for low income households who are at risk of
not being able to afford housing as well as rising food, health care,
and transportation costs.53
Nationwide, Black and Latinx renters are at higher risk of eviction,
and Black women experience the highest eviction rates. Pre-
COVID 19, Black women were evicted at higher rates than other
groups, with 1 in 5 Black female renters reporting that they have
experienced eviction compared with 1 in 12 Hispanic/Latinx women
and 1 in 15 white women.54
This pattern persists in Minnesota as well: “Nearly half of all
evictions experienced by people living in Minnesota over the
past three years occurred in just two zip codes where people of
color comprise more than half of the population and individuals
experience high rates of poverty. Furthermore, African Americans
make up 39 percent of adults experiencing homelessness, but only
five percent of adults statewide.”55
The housing crisis has hit Black women especially hard. Research
shows that women are evicted from their homes at an annual rate
16 percent higher than men. Eviction disparities are especially
higher for Black women, who are evicted 36 percent more than
Black men.56 In Minnesota, homeownership disparities affect
single-mother households from communities of color the most.
Literature Review
These families are less likely to be living in a home they own and are
therefore missing out on a key building block of wealth.
Eviction and other forms of housing instability can trigger a host
of negative outcomes for parents and children. Eviction creates a
legal record that can be used by landlords to reject future rental
applications, further decreasing housing options and exposing
evicted families to other scrutiny in the system. Eviction is associated
with higher risk of high blood pressure, sexually transmitted diseases,
depression, anxiety, exposure to violence, and higher mortality rates.
For women specifically, “eviction is associated with physical and sexual
assault, drug use, mental illness, and future housing precarity.”57 For
these reasons, the Minnesota’s Division of Child and Family Health’s
assessment of maternal and child wellbeing selected housing as a
top funding priority to improve health outcomes, stating: “Housing
is connected to every aspect of people’s lives and is a critical factor
in financial security, academic success, and health… Every person in
Minnesota should have a safe, affordable place to live in a thriving
community. But not all do.”58
Health
“Across the lifespan and for all measures,
Indigenous, Black, and Latinx Minnesotans
experience the largest [health] disparities. While Minnesota is
one of the healthiest states in the nation, at the same time it
is home to some of the worst health disparities…”59
Black women and girls of all incomes and educational backgrounds
suffer worse health due to racism, biased treatment influenced by
racial stereotypes, and the continued influence of scientific racism.
Recent health research suggests that both experiences of racism
as well as racist stereotypes held by health workers diminish Black
women’s health outcomes.60 Even with consistent access to health
care resources, Black women and girls are adversely impacted by
the persistent stresses of living in a racist, sexist society. Research
on allostatic load — defined as the “cumulative wear and tear on the
body’s systems owing to repeated adaptation to stressors” — shows
exposure to racism (such as stereotyping, job discrimination, racist
insults) results in health deterioration.61 In other words, racism
contributes to local and national racial disparities in health: Black
people have higher rates of hypertension, high cholesterol, and
type-2 diabetes, than white people. Black women — whether rich or
poor — have the highest probability for high allostatic loads.62
27
 Literature Review

In addition to the unhealthy effects of racism, environmental mothers is 2.3 times that of white mothers, and the infant mortality
inequalities negatively impact Black health. Nationwide, Black rate for Black babies is more than twice that of white infants.68
people are more likely to live in adverse environmental conditions,
The Center for American Progress reviewed multiple studies and
such as proximity to contaminated industrial sites that have not
found that Black women and other women of color consistently report
been remediated or are in violation of orders to reduce toxic
that they experience “bias and discrimination based on their race and
waste.63 Black Minnesotans are more likely to live in environments
gender in health care settings… feeling invisible or unheard when
with poor air quality; death due to asthma is four times higher for
asking medical providers for help and when expressing issues with
Black Minnesotans than white Minnesotans. And in the COVID-19
pain or discomfort during and after the birthing process.”69 Doctors
pandemic, Black and Latinx Minnesotans “have the highest age-
adjusted rates of hospitalization.”64 and nurses accuse Black women of being stubborn or difficult when
they ask questions or ask for additional pain medication. The same
Unfortunately, many of the studies found correlations between
medical staff responsible racial biases of health care staff and
for intervening are often In Minnesota, the maternal lower quality of care for women of
under the influence of the color. The report underscores that
same racist stereotypes that
mortality rate for Black this bias extends even to Black
emerged in the nineteenth mothers is 2.3 times that of infants who are seriously ill: White
century. Significant numbers white mothers, and the infant infants receive higher quality of care
of medical students and than infants of color.
mortality rate for Black babies
professionals still believe
racist science myths that Black is more than twice that of These studies, along with the
women’s bodies are stronger white infants. reported experiences of medical
than white women’s bodies racism by high-status Black women
and less susceptible to pain. 65 like Serena Williams,70 demonstrate
Other false beliefs include: how the stereotypes of the Jezebel
“Blacks’ skin is thicker than whites,’” “Blacks’ nerve endings are less and Sapphire operate in the health system. As sociologist Tressie Mae
sensitive than whites,’” and “Blacks have stronger immune systems Cottom summarizes, these stereotypes aren’t just found in the media:
than whites.” Medical staff under the influence of these beliefs often they are actively contributing to “the process of reproducing structural
refuse to give Black patients adequate pain medication and make inequalities in our everyday lives… The prevalent perception of black
other poor judgment calls about treatment. women as unruly bodies and incompetent caretakers” degrades the
quality-of-care physicians give Black women patients.”71
In its report on the status of upholding obligations set under
the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial For over a century, eugenicist doctors forcibly sterilized Black women
Discrimination (CERD), the United Nations declared that “The and other women they saw as “overbreeding” inferior children or
Government of the United States has failed to uphold its obligations judged as incapable of motherhood.72 In more recent decades,
to protect women and children of ethnic and racial minorities.” doctors, social workers, and judges have coerced Black women into
Extensive research shows that this failure starts in the healthcare being sterilized or using experimental chemical birth control like
system even before birth for Black women and girls. Norplant as conditions for obtaining social welfare benefits.73 In
her review of these policies, Elizabeth Jekanowski concluded that
Black women in the U.S. are three to four times more likely to die in such policies — which continued through the 1990s and early 2000s
childbirth, and twice as likely to suffer infant loss than white women.66
— forced “Black women to choose between feeding their families
Regardless of age, education, wealth or health care resources, Black and maintaining their own bodily autonomy… cruel examples of
women and their babies are dying at much higher rates than their American politics denigrating Black women’s humanity.” Research
white peers. Black women with PhDs are more likely to die during and lived experiences continue to show that staff and professionals in
childbirth or have their infants die than white women with only a high a host of health care institutions continue to stereotype Black women
school degree.67 In Minnesota, the maternal mortality rate for Black as in need of external control.

28

Criminal Justice
System
As discussed earlier, the damaging history of
stereotyping Black women and girls as defiant, angry, loud, and
untrustworthy contributes to their criminalization. Black people in
general are subjected to racial profiling across sectors, from police
who disproportionately pull Black drivers over — and are less likely
to find evidence of criminal acts74 — to store employees who assume
Black customers are more likely to shoplift,75 the stereotype of Black
criminality is deeply ingrained in the American mind.76 This intense
stereotyping means that Black women and girls are fully aware that
if they report crimes to law enforcement or other sources, they are
likely to be met with disbelief or disdain. Given that we know most
sexual assaults and domestic violence incidents go unreported,
regardless of race, it is imperative to see how the impact of negative
stereotypes and histories of state violence deter Black women and
girls from reporting crimes against them.
School Pushout to Prison: Education and
Criminalization of Black Girls
Studies suggest that the criminalization of Black women begins
when they are girls in school. First, the school-to-prison pipeline
tracks students from educational institutions through discipline,
truancy, and arrest; a statistic that can be readily seen in Black girls
being 10 times more likely to be suspended than white girls in
Minnesota.77 Then, it tracks them into the juvenile justice system.
Insufficient mental health resources, teacher bias, and racially
biased school policies all play a role in the increased discipline,
suspension, and expulsion rates that Black girls experience in
schools. The consequences of exclusion from school activities due
to disciplinary actions can be severe, ranging from lower academic
performance to early involvement with the criminal justice system.78
Black girls are suspended six times as often, and only 2 percent of
white females are subjected to exclusionary suspensions compared
to 12 percent of Black girls.79 The incarceration rate for all girls is
43 per 100,000 girls (those between ages 10 and 17). However,
the incarceration rate for Black girls is more than three times as
likely as their white peers to be incarcerated (94 per 100,000).80 In
Minnesota, the statistics are similar: Black girls are more than three
times as likely to be sent to the office than white peers, more than
Literature Review
seven times more likely to be given in-school suspension, and over
five times more likely to get out of school suspension.81
Disproportionately high rates of discipline and incarceration for
Black girls are connected to adultification: adults view Black girls
as older than their white peers, and thus need less protection and
support because they are perceived to be more independent and
know more about adult topics.82 Studies show that teachers and
other adults perceive Black girls as less innocent and more adult-
like than their white peers. Black girls sometimes get less attention
than their male peers because they are perceived to be more
socially mature and self-reliant.83
Disproportionately high rates
of discipline and incarceration
for Black girls are connected
to adultification: adults view
Black girls as older than their
white peers, and thus need
less protection and support
because they are perceived
to be more independent and
know more about adult topics.
Given established discrepancies in law enforcement and juvenile
court practices that disproportionately affect Black girls, the
perception of Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like
may contribute to more punitive exercise of discretion by those in
positions of authority, greater use of force, and harsher penalties.84
When the priority is discipline over educational attainment, Black
girls miss out on opportunities to be engaged in school and are set
up to suffer future losses in income and health benefits associated
with education. In addition, some see harsh disciplinary actions as
anti-Black.85 Black advocates and legal researchers have linked the
adultification bias to their harsher treatment in school and by the
criminal justice system.86
29

School pushout and other aspects of adultification of Black girls
have implications in the criminal justice system and the issue of
sexual exploitation. Not completing high school increases risk
for abuse and violence as well as involvement with the criminal
justice system. Because schools disproportionately push out Black
girls, they are more likely to be exposed to these harms than
their white peers. For example, from 2008 to 2013, over half of
the Minneapolis Police Department reported cases of minor sex
trafficking were African American and African-born girls, the highest
percentage among all racial groups.87 But this reporting does not
necessarily mean that Black girls and women who are trafficked get
the help and support they need from law enforcement.
Sex Trafficking
U.S. law defines human trafficking as using force, fraud, or coercion
to compel a person into commercial sex acts or labor against their
will. The Action-Means-Purpose Model can help understand the
definition used by federal law:
“Human trafficking occurs
when a perpetrator, often Because of stereotypes about
referred to as a trafficker, takes
Black criminality and Black
Action and then employs
the Means of force, fraud, women’s hypersexuality, Black
or coercion for the Purpose girls who are subjected to
of compelling the victim to sexual exploitation are often
provide commercial sex acts or
labor or services.”88
labeled as offenders rather
than victims.
The State of Minnesota defines
trafficking differently. It considers
sex trafficking "by any means."89
Additionally, Minnesota passed the Safe Harbor for Sexually
Exploited Youth Law which went into effect in August 2014. Before
the Safe Harbor law, sexually exploited and trafficked youth could
be considered criminals for trading sex. The Safe Harbor law treats
sexually exploited youth as victims entitled to services and support.
In 2016, the state legislature increased access to Safe Harbor
services through age 24.
Even with such laws in place, Black women and girls experience
higher rates of sexual exploitation. From the sexualization of Black
women's bodies since slavery to the lasting stereotypes of Black
women's hypersexuality,91 it is clear why 40 percent of sex trafficking
victims and survivors nationally are Black women.91 While they make
Literature Review
up less than 15 percent of the U.S. population, in 2019, FBI statistics
showed that 51 percent of all prostitution arrests for youth under age
18 are of Black youth. In Minnesota, at least 5,000 youth reported
trading sex for something of value, such as shelter or money: 1.7
percent of those reporting traded sex were Black, African, or African
American, and 1.3 percent were cisgender girls.92
The disproportionate rates result from intersecting factors that
put Black women and girls at an increased vulnerability to sex
trafficking. These factors include a history of sexual or physical
abuse, homelessness, unstable housing, low socioeconomic status,
and involvement in child welfare systems and criminal systems.93
Because there is an overrepresentation of Black women and girls
in these systems (i.e. Black women are five times more likely to be
incarcerated than white women;94 23 percent of youth in foster care
are Black95 etc.), it means they are particularly at risk. While these
disproportionate rates are indisputable, Black women and girls
often go unnoticed as victims of sex trafficking. Instead, the focus on
the sex trafficking victim is a young, white woman.96
Research conducted on
commercial sexual exploitation
in Minnesota cites the sexual
colonization, exploitation
and abuse of women of color
as reasons why race is a risk
factor in sex trafficking in
Minnesota.97 There are a variety
of social factors that raise the
risk of women and girls being
trafficked. These factors include
racialized gender stereotypes
of women of color. Such
stereotypes create and reinforce the belief that women of color
are naturally suited for the sex trade, always available, and willing
to provide sexual services.98 These racialized gender stereotypes
fuel sexual fetishes and the eroticization of women of color,
contributing to the demand for them in sex trafficking. Sex buyers
are predominantly white men, and some seek out Black women or
American Indian women to fulfill their racist and violent fantasies.99
The historical constructions of Black girls as more adult, less
innocent, and more sexually aware have shaped anti-trafficking law
enforcement practices, meaning the practices functionally exclude
Black girls from protection because enforcement agents do not see
30
 Literature Review

them as true victims.100 Ignoring the connection between racism and viewed as victims and stereotypes of Black women as angry or
trafficking, especially for minors undermines Black youth's identity hypersexual, as well as more recent patterns and evidence, suggest
as sex trafficking victims.101 Because of stereotypes about Black that many law enforcement and court officers still do not perceive
criminality and Black women’s hypersexuality, Black girls who are Black women as credible victims.
subjected to sexual exploitation are often labeled as offenders rather
than victims.102 As a result, the factors that push Black girls into being
vulnerable to sex trafficking and other criminal exploitation, like
Police, Prosecutors and
housing insecurity and school pushout, go ignored. Courts
There is reason to believe law enforcement agents in Minnesota As explored earlier, for most of the history of the United States,
are operating under the influence of these stereotypes. A 2022 the police and courts did not consider it a crime to rape a Black
investigation into the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis woman. Indeed, as non-citizens during slavery and second-class
Police Department by the Minnesota Department of Human citizens in the century before the modern civil rights movement,
Rights revealed that according to body worn camera footage and Black women, men and children could not expect any recourse in
interviews with MPD officers and City leaders, some MPD officers the courts, particularly if their claim was against a white defendant.
and supervisors would use misogynistic language and rely on Additionally, deeply entrenched stereotypes of Black criminality
misogynistic stereotypes. In social have and continue to warp views
media posts and messages, MPD of Black victims, exposing them
officers used language to further to harsh judgment by even those
racial stereotypes associated with
There are disproportionately who are meant to investigate and
Black people, especially Black fewer Black lawyers, judges, prosecute cases on their behalf.
women. 103
prosecutors, and other figures Finally, segregated law schools
and underfunded historically
in the court system, meaning Black colleges and Universities
This resonates with the history
recounted earlier: throughout Black victims usually find (HBCUs) meant few Black
United States history, raping themselves questioned by people could aspire to the legal
Black women was not a crime. profession. Thus, to this day there
white lawyers, judges, and
Indeed, laws existed to prevent are disproportionately fewer Black
the prosecution of men who being evaluated by majority lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and
raped enslaved women. White
104 white juries. other figures in the court system,
male civilians resented the social, meaning Black victims usually
economic, and political changes find themselves questioned by
brought by the Civil War and used white lawyers, judges, and being
rape as an instrument of terror to regain and solidify power and evaluated by majority white juries. This history, as well as media
privileges believed to be lost due to the abolition of slavery. This coverage of high-profile cases, such as Marissa Alexander’s,107 can
history contributes to the pattern of poor investigation of crimes make it difficult for Black women and girls to trust they will find
against Black women, crimes that are sometimes ignored entirely advocates who will take their cases seriously when and if they report
— even when there is a potential serial murderer preying on Black violent incidents or threats to their lives to authorities.
women. 105

Studies of policing, prosecutions and sentencing reveal racial

Some studies estimate that for every Black woman who reports
sexual assault, there are 15 others who do not, due to fears of
additional harms from law enforcement, either to themselves or
their community. The historical record of Black women not being
106
differences in how Black women victims are perceived and treated
by police, and how their assailants are charged and sentenced by
the courts.

31
 Literature Review

Policing the Minneapolis Police Department113 and police violence against

Black women. However, understanding the reality of Black women
Black women have reason to be wary of the police, even when they experiencing state violence is challenging due to the inadequacy
try to report domestic violence assaults. In their review of research on of law enforcement data in the tracking of police killings, a lack of a
race and criminal justice system responses to sexual assault, Shaw readily available database outlining a complete list of Black women
and Lee summarize how prior studies find police were more likely killed at the hands of police, or data collected on gender-based
to label victims of color as “uncooperative or otherwise disruptive to police violence.114
the investigation” which resulted in “fewer investigative steps being
completed throughout the investigation.”108 According to the Washington Post's database of deadly police
shootings, women account for less than 4 percent of fatal police
As Amber Simmons’ research summarized: “Police officers, shootings,115 but almost 20 percent of the women fatally shot by
in particular, have a contentious history with Black women in police are Black,116 though Black women make up only 13 percent
America… Officers have a tendency to of the women population
1) not believe Black female victims of in the U.S. Since 2015,
domestic violence, 2) think they are the police have killed at least
aggressor in some way, or 3) refuse to
Police are more likely to label 51 Black women. Yet,
help or report abuse of Black women Black women as “aggressors” only half of the Black
when it is encountered.” 109
during a domestic violence women killed received
incident, subjecting Black national media attention
Police are more likely to label Black in the 60 days surrounding
women as “aggressors” during a women to mandatory arrest their death. According to
domestic violence incident, subjecting at higher rates than white FiveThirtyEight's analysis of
Black women to mandatory arrest at women who call for help. media reports, the coverage
higher rates than white women who was limited to five or fewer
call for help.110 Changing some of the stories.117 This lack of
mandatory arrest provisions of the coverage of police killings
Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) would help alleviate some of of Black women is shocking and explained in part by research
the issue, but it would neither solve either the underlying problem on news media coverage of Black people, which over-represents
of racial and gender stereotyping nor resolve the issue of police Black people as criminals.118 These findings similarly reflect the
brutality against Black women. results of a 2019 survey of Minnesota-based journalists, which
suggested that the Minnesota news media tends to over-represent
Police Violence against Black Women white Minnesotans in a positive light and over-represent Black
Minnesotans in a negative light.119
Black women’s history of enslavement is the root of their interaction
with the state and law enforcement agents.111 The violence shows Police killings of Black people often receive national media
up in the modern context through police killings of Black women, attention today due to the persistence of the #BlackLivesMatter
interactions with law enforcement marked by violence, assault, and movement. However, most of the attention focuses on police
injury, unlawful arrests, and the conviction and incarceration of killings of Black men.120 Black women throughout history have
Black women for defending themselves against non-police violence. always been some of the most visible leaders fighting for civil rights
and racial justice. However, they are too often the forgotten victims
Unarmed Black women are more likely to be killed by police than of police violence. While Black women are subject to both racism
any other group, including Black men. Black men and women
112
and sexism, their experiences are not given the same platform
are racially profiled by police, resulting in higher rates of contact in comparison to Black men in anti-racist movements (e.g. Black
and potential exposure to harassment, brutality, and arrest. Racial Lives Matter) or to white women in anti-sexist movements (e.g.
and gender bias explains heightened searches when stopped by #MeToo).121

32
 Literature Review

The African American Research Forum’s report, Say Her Name: girls and the lack of coverage of missing people of color is referred to
Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women, analyzes Black as “missing white woman syndrome.”129 In addition, there is empirical
women's experiences of police violence. The report's primary purpose evidence to support the perception of demographic disparities in
is to mobilize around the stories of Black women who have lost abduction news. For example, the media provide less coverage of
their lives to police violence, hence the supporting #SayHerName missing Black people than other missing persons. When news outlets
campaign.122 Black women and their specific experiences of police do pick up stories of missing Black people, the coverage is lower
violence are often erased from demonstrations, discussions, and intensity than for white victims.130
demands to broaden society's understanding of who is deserving of
empathy and justice.123 Local news coverage disproportionately represents Black men
and women as criminals, Black missing children are significantly
Prosecutors and Courts underrepresented in news coverage compared to national statistics.131
For example, only 19.5 percent of missing children cases covered in
When sexual assault crimes do lead to charges, studies find that news media were cases of African-American victims, 33 percent of
prosecutorial action is uneven based on the race of the victim.124 reported incidents involve missing Black children.132
Other studies suggest that implicit biases of judges and prosecutors
lead to charging disparities when victims are Black women: the The Missing White Woman Syndrome reflects and reinforces race and
strong, angry Black woman stereotype is the opposite of the prototype gender hierarchies that situate white women and girls as feminine,
of the battered white woman, and so prosecutors and judges may not innocent, people who deserve and need protection.133 Not only
believe Black women were significantly harmed or deserving of full are there disproportionately more news stories of missing white
protection. As law professor Jeffrey Pokorak argues, this can lead to women and girls, but also the tone of media coverage is different.
biases in charges that are lighter or dropped due to prosecutors not Black women and girls are more likely to be blamed for purportedly
believing they have enough to convince a jury a Black woman was putting themselves in harm’s way, a type of victim blaming that
a real victim. An implicit bias study conducted
125

with over 100 trial judges across three jurisdictions

found white judges had a strong pro-white bias.126 Black women and girls are more likely to be
Similarly, researchers at the Brandeis University blamed for purportedly putting themselves
Feminist Sexual Ethics Project found in their review
of literature that prosecutors pursued fewer cases
in harm’s way, a type of victim blaming that
when a Black woman was the victim as in cases positions them as less innocent and less
where a white woman was attacked. 127
worthy of rescue.
Even after death, studies suggest courts do not
value victims of color as much as white victims:
According to a review of studies by Claire Kebodeaux, even when positions them as less innocent and less worthy of rescue.134 Racism
details of the crime are controlled for, the race and sex of victims and misogynoir (biases based on the intersection of race and gender)
matter in the sentencing of homicide cases. For example, in vehicular impact how society determines who is a victim and who deserves
homicide cases, even with "all other variables being equal, a drunk empathy.135 The legacy of racist stereotypes and policies mean that
driver who kills a black victim will receive a sentence 50 percent missing Black women and girls are not humanized in the same way as
shorter than one who kills a white victim."128 their white counterparts.

Missing White Woman Syndrome
While Black women are overrepresented as welfare queens
and criminalized in news media, mainstream media provide an
“overabundance of coverage …dedicate[d] to missing person cases
of white women.” This overabundance of missing white women and
Black women are also often invisible in their leadership and
contributions to racial justice movements.136 The absence of
acknowledgment of Black women's leadership in supporting,
creating, and leading these movements also reinforces the belief that
Black women can’t address these problems and do not require any
specific attention when it comes to their victimization.

33
“Get off my back, I’m trying. Instead
of shunning me, offer me help. You
tell me I better go do this, or do that
and I have 2 days to do that, you
know? And then I get everything
done and you still won’t get off my
back. I’m already broken. It was
traumatic.”
Lived Experience Interview

Reflection How can professionals hold space for and

questions give grace to Black women and girls who
are experiencing trauma, even if they do
not share the same cultural background
or life experiences?
How might they grow as individual
leaders in their field if they had the skills
to comprehend the experiences of people
who are not like them?

34
 Findings

KEY FINDINGS FROM INTERVIEWS

Alignment between Lived Experience & Key Informants
This section describes the ways Lived Experience and Key Informant
interview data resonated with each other, albeit with different emphases THREE MAJOR THEMES:
and nuances.
Hire people who care
Three major aligned themes emerged from our analysis:
about & reflect the
• Hire people who care about and reflect the community community
• Require training for professionals working in MMAAW-related domains
Require training for
• Increase resources for the work, especially specific
support for Black women and girls professionals working
in MMAAW-related
There is agreement across Lived Experience (LE) and Key Informant (KI) domains
data, but the ways these themes were communicated by the two groups
contained subtle and stark differences. These differences are made Increase resources for
clear when we center Black women and girls and compare their lived
the work, especially
experiences of systems to the ways professionals in those systems explain
the ways those systems work or don’t work for Black women and girls. specific support for
Black women & girls

Theme 1: Hiring
Both the Lived Experience and Key Informant participants called for Lived Experience:
more Black practitioners and/or Black-led organizations to be hired
across institutions. However, the LE data emphasizes how important it
Hire people who will
is for those people not just to be merely “diverse” or “representative” treat us humanely
demographically, but also to have competencies and characteristics that
convey trustworthiness, compassion, and willingness to listen to Black Key Informants:
women and girls without judgment.
‘Mirror’ the community
Lived Experience voices brought to light the problems of culture within to build trust
the systems, how actors in those systems actually interact with Black
women and girls and how they make them feel: factors that are at the core Black Key Informants:
of why there is a trust problem. The competencies and characteristics LE Hire staff who won’t
and some KI spoke of are not inborn, but learned, which suggests a need
for improved training and continuing education for new and existing staff. stereotype Black
women and girls

35

Lived Experience: Hire people who will treat
us humanely
LE ZEN BIN1134: You know I need somebody that looks like me
and my daughter, you know, I wanna be able to go into a bank
where I can guarantee it’s owned by someone who looks like
me and my daughter and treats, someone who could relate to
what my life is like.
Across the board LE and KI talked about hiring more staff that
“reflect the community” or who are Black women themselves. The
key difference in their discussion of hiring needs was that Lived
Experience speakers brought to the fore the multiple harmful
interactions they have had with staff. Staffers made them feel
unwelcome, incompetent, or unworthy of help. In contrast, the Key
Informants were more likely to speak generally about needing more
diversity to be more representative of the Black community and to
build trust with Black women and girls.
LE-ZEN BIN 1: “You have to be bleeding to be heard.”
LE DAP1: After that … these two lady officers showed up, and
they said that they do follow up, some domestic violence
review, and want to make sure you’re okay, and make sure
you’re safe. So that only happened to me one time. But I loved
it, I loved it because it made me feel safe, and maybe feel
like you know somebody cared, you know? … [And] that only
happened one time. I just wondered, okay, what is going on?
And then so at the court precinct [I learned] there’s only one
domestic abuse lady.
LE 13: It’s about giving them resources and listening to them
without looking down on them, because the next few minutes
you’ll walk away and then there’s a negative comment [left]
behind. [I]t’s just totally disrespectful. And it’s like, what do you
do when you are in a situation like that? How do you— because
not only have you been abused by your abuser, or whatever the
situation may be, now you’ve been abused by a facility that’s
not genuinely caring… [D]id you honestly feel my pain when I
was trying to express to you what I was going through?
Findings
As they gave testimony to the ways they were treated, Black women
and girls defined the qualities and competencies staff need to
have. These qualities and competencies are in short supply in their
experiences with systems. They want institutions to hire people who:
• Do not endorse or reinforce negative
stereotypes of Black women
• Are not patronizing or pitying
• Are educated about Black women’s struggles,
Black history and community
• Have expertise in trauma and cultural competence
• Make Black women feel safe and cared
for when they are in crisis
• Ask relevant questions about their needs
rather than interrogating them
• Have a sense of accountability
• Listen to and trust survivors of violence
Lived experience data show that Black women and girls continue
to be impacted by the racist, sexist, “controlling images” that
portray them as incompetent mothers, oblivious to pain, angry and
defiant. The prevailing prototype of a female victim is still based on
the dominant framework for white femininity, and these women
testify to the ways that dynamic continues to disadvantage them
when they deal with staff. Black women and girls’ experiences with
systems and dominant social norms inspire distrust of the systems
and individuals working within them.
LE 5: There are stereotypes of us in the media. It tells us ‘you
need to be this type of Black woman.’
LE ZEN BIN 1: I don’t want no one’s pity, but I want to be treated
fairly and equal you know cause no matter what, I have no
choice but I have to survive.
Specifically, they do not trust that they will even be seen as needing
help or deserving of help, let alone get the kind of help they need
even if they are deemed worthy. Actors and processes in the system
make them feel like they will not get help until it’s too late.
36

LE ZEN BIN 1: I feel that we have to really be in crisis to get
assistance, to get the help that we need. Because without being
in crisis, our needs aren’t really handled like everyone else’s.
The interactions they have with system actors make them feel like
their lives are not valued in the same way that other women are
valued. They are made to feel like they aren’t worth the time or
money it takes to provide safe shelter, medical care, or that system
actors are more concerned with processing payments or maximizing
efficiency rather than repairing or preventing harm.
LE DAP 1: We know insurance works to get [them] more money.
They don’t trust system actors to treat them with care or consistency,
especially if they don’t conform to expectations of likability.
LE ZEN BIN 1: [U]nless you’re like, really liked by some of the
staff, all the resources weren’t readily available to you, unless
you knew the specific questions to ask.
Lived experience with staffers who stereotyped, hurried,
disrespected or criticized Black women and girls generated distrust
and low expectations for assistance. These are the reasons LE
participants recommended hiring both Black staff and better trained
staff, the latter of which will be discussed in the training section of
the findings.
Key Informants: ‘Mirror’ the community to
build trust
KI08 (Service Provider–Trafficking):135 Absolutely. It’s important
that we paint a portrait or be a mirror to the girls that we service,
when they come into our program. So, it’s important that they
see somebody that looks like them.
Though both groups advocated for hiring additional Black and
BIPOC staff, Key Informants were more likely to discuss this need in
general terms about the benefits of diversifying their organization
or subcontractors working with their organization to build trust with
Black women and girls.
When KIs called for more “diverse” hiring practices, some
specifically suggested hiring more Black people as staff. Others
spoke about contracting with Black-led organizations to ensure that
Black women and girls were seen and served by folks who share
Findings
some of their experiences or background. A few suggested that
Black community organizations would be more trusted or could be
a “bridge” to state agencies that do not have trust of Black women
and girls.
KI16 (Child Welfare Professional): And you know we right now
are revamping how we are hiring staff to support. You know the
families that we work with, and you know, as I said, my team is
very diverse, but not all teams, you know, that are serving the
families in child protection with ongoing case management are
diverse. And I think that Hennepin County does a very good job
at being intentional about not just professional background or
degrees, right? That our child protection, child welfare related,
but lived experiences and other work experiences that support
communities of color. And so I think we’re more intentional
about that. But really to have a workforce that looks like the
people we are serving as something that we strive to do.
Some provided examples of successful revisions to hiring
practices and partnerships with Black or more diverse community
organizations.
KI15 (Child Welfare Professional): In Hennepin County, we
have been working with Village Arms as well, and I think that
is an amazing entity to bring in the cases that are with African
American families. And so what we have, what I also think, that
is very helpful to families, and what my supervisor has told
me has been very helpful, is …for them to see somebody that
looks like them to help them navigate this situation…Village
Arms has been doing phenomenal work with our team. And we
have even been asked to make sure we assign a Village Arms
worker when it’s an African American family.
While the KIs acknowledged there is a lack of trust with Black
women and girls, many were not able to explicitly articulate how
their own role or agency might feed into that history of distrust. For
example a KI from the law enforcement field talked about mistrust
in this way:
KI12 (Law Enforcement Office/Support): You know I’ve been
asked over the years– how do we fix this? How do we fix
mistrust? …I think a lot of it is communication: being able to
have the conversations, the real conversations. Tell me what’s
not working. Tell me what is working. Tell me why you don’t
trust me sitting here?
37

This remark is divorced from the historical context of institutional
neglect and violence that Black women and girls and their allies
have spoken out about for decades. The “real conversations” have
happened in response to a variety of crises, most recently in the
wake of the murder of George Floyd and dialogues about the state’s
forced displacement of Black residents from Rondo in St. Paul,
restrictive covenants in Minneapolis, and more. The passage also
implies that the burden is on Black communities to explain their
position, not on the state and its agents who have inflicted harm.
Black Key Informants: Hire staff who won’t
stereotype Black women and girls
Like their non-Black counterparts, Black women KIs suggested
that having Black staffers would build trust and rapport with Black
women and girls seeking services.
KI15 (Child Welfare Professional): We need more people going
into the field so when these situations arise with families that
they can get or request a Black or brown worker. If we just call a
spade a spade, I have heard so many families say, ‘you know I
got this white worker, and I don’t trust them,’ you know, and it’s
just like if they had somebody that looked like them, they feel
like they can identify with and established a really good rapport
with, I think cases would go a little differently.
One explained that part of their motivation to do the work was to be
a familiar face for Black clients:
KI08 (Service Provider–Trafficking): “I’m dedicated to it because
those are my people. Those are my people, and they need help,
like, you know we’re dying. We’re missing …and if I can do
anything to continue to be an advocate, I would do that and
that’s what I’m doing right now.
Findings
Additionally, Black women KIs shared concerns similar to the
Lived Experience participants about the way Black women and
girls are treated by staff members. Black women KIs described
how they had heard about or witnessed Black women and girls be
mistreated by staff.
KI15 (Child Welfare Professional): I have seen a lot of times
[that] there is no cultural agility on the workers’ part. They
will pick up on —specifically for Black girls and women— how
they speak… If they have a colorful way that they articulate
their needs that seemed to [the worker to] be ‘aggressive,
intimidating, non-compliant, defiant’…
No, they’re just passionate, they’re hurt, they’re in survival
they’re going through all the things….If the [staff] don’t have
the skill set to pick up on [how]this person is really hurting, or
this person is really going through some other things, it’s not
necessarily that they’re yelling at me it’s just the situation has
made them passionate about what they have to say.
KI15’s comment identifies the continued problem of stereotyping
Black women—even those who have been traumatized—as
angry, loud, and potentially violent. This misperception drives
misidentification of trauma and compromises staff members’ ability
to accurately identify needs and services.
38

Theme 2: Training
Learning from the perspectives and incidents described by Black
women and girls with Lived Experience as well as certain Black
women Key Informants, comprehensive training in areas like
cultural competence, harm reduction, and trauma awareness are
very needed across systems meant to serve victims of violence.
On the lived experience side, Black women experiencing violence
often experience more harm when they sought help. They identified
that systems professionals did not understand or respect their
experiences as Black women. This resonated with the data across
the nine Key Informants who identify as Black women. They raised
that a lack of trauma-informed training specific to Black culture and
Black women is severely limiting how systems can support and
protect Black women.
In contrast, many non-Black Key Informants could not speak to
the specific barriers and racial stereotypes Black women and girls
face. When asked about challenges within their profession that
might cause or worsen disparities for Black women and girls,
several identified needing to track Black women and girls better
through quantitative data to better prevent violence. Others shifted
Lived Experience: Train people to not re-
traumatize us
LE 12: I think Caucasian women need to… be educated on
black women and black society, and the things that we go
through. Because it's not the same thing they go through.
As with hiring, Lived Experience interviewees illustrated the need
for comprehensive, ongoing training for staff by sharing stories
of maltreatment. These incidents occurred across key sites and
systems, from shelters to health care to police stations. Professionals
in these agencies made the LE women feel that they are being
punished and judged unfairly for not having information when they
are hurting and vulnerable.
Findings
Lived Experience:
Train people to not
re-traumatize us
Key Informants:
Increase skills and
streamline procedures
responsibility by arguing that Black communities’ distrust in law
enforcement and other institutions is causing a lack of reporting
and cooperation that, in their eyes, is needed to effectively prevent
this problem.
Both groups identified that Black women and girls encounter
multiple, disconnected agencies that expect them to know the
procedure and have time to find the resources they need on
their own. This resonated across the datasets when it came to
systems professionals adultifying Black girls. Moreover, other Key
Informants acknowledge more training is needed as well as a
questioning of the efficacy of current training requirements.
LE ZEN BIN 1: Why do you keep on kicking at me? Get off my
back, I'm trying. Instead of shunning me, offer me help, but
you tell me ‘I better go do this, do that, or do this, and I have
two days to do that,’ or I gotta go, you know? And then I need
everything done and you still won’t get off my back. I'm already
broken. It was traumatic.
Black women and girls’ experiences reveal a set of expectations
and assumptions held by people in the institutions and agencies
that are supposed to help them when they face violence. Lived
Experience interviewees explained how this “hidden curriculum” of
knowledge and behavior, as well as negative stereotyping of Black
women, led to frustrating and hurtful outcomes.
39

One woman recounted being given information for a shelter only
to find out when she tried to get in that she was supposedly not
eligible:
LE DAP 1: ‘Yes, we have it, but we can’t give it to you because
you live in this neighborhood.’ I'm pretty sure there are people
other races in my neighborhood that you guys are assisting,
because I probably got this number from this person who is a
different color with me. But then you know… ‘What are you?
Oh, African. American. Oh, yeah, We can't help you…’
Similarly, a woman who tried to report a violent incident was given
the third degree when she tried to make the report:
LE 11: So when I finally was able to get on the phone with
someone who was able to make record of this I was asked. Well,
what took you so long? and he was like. If this happened on
this day, why did you wait a week to report it? And I got super
angry because well, for one I didn't wait a week. I waited until
the next business day, and you guys gave me the runaround
for a week. and secondly, even if I did wait, wait, wait, wait, wait
a week. Why does that matter? So I just kind of felt unheard
in that moment …And then, while I’m down there physically
making the report …And then I have to explain everything
while also remembering that I am in a police station, so I can't
get angry.
Another woman experienced the continued impact of scientific
racism in the health care system when she was giving birth. A staff
member didn’t believe she needed pain intervention.
LE 15: …like hospitals, okay, because when it comes to
pain, they feel like we don't have any… In the hospital that I
originally was going to give birth, and this lady [on staff] she
needs some mindfulness, racial bias training because she said
some crazy comment.
The experiences of Black women and girls illuminate a set of rigid
expectations for victim behavior and emotional control, as well as
having detailed knowledge of rules and regulations. When Black
women and girls do not meet these demands to shape themselves
to these expectations, they are made to feel less than other
women. They specifically mentioned the need for people to have
background knowledge in African American history and struggles,
as well as knowledge of trauma-informed approaches.
Findings
LE 11: Definitely more funding so they can hire more staff and
train people, like trauma informed people.
LE ZEN BIN 1: I think everybody should have to take African
American culture, rather than just the children of color…
Key Informants: Increase skills and
streamline procedures
As with discussions of hiring, there was a difference between how
non-Black Key Informants and Black KIs spoke about training.
Non-Black KIs did not speak to the ways Black women and girls are
treated in the systems where they work. Rather, they focused on
the limitations set by statutes, and expressed hope that improved
training and procedures would result in better outcomes for
MMAAW. These KIs focused on how training could improve data
collection or be infused into statutes and reformed procedures.
Some of the KIs focused on the need to know how to generate and
use data more effectively. For example, one KI described problems
with data that come from medical exams and autopsies when
people aren’t trained to ask additional questions or contact families:
KI11 (Data Professional): In the area of sexual exploitation, for
example, that data just…it's…the number of cases of sexual
exploitation that we've identified through the hospital data is,
at this point, underwhelming. We know there's more out there
and it may even be recognized by clinicians but they're not
documenting. And medical records can't document unless…I
mean they can't code it unless it's been documented. And
physicians may or may not be willing to find it… So there's
several steps in that process, and at some point you begin to
realize ‘oh, just because we have a diagnosis and it shows up
this often, that doesn't necessarily tell us a whole lot about
how it's impacting our healthcare system….And there is a tool
out there called the Retrospective Fatality Analysis, also been
referred to a psychological autopsy, that involves interviewing
the immediate family members and their indoor acquaintances
to get a better understanding of why this person died… So
this is a well adopted or…a highly regarded intervention…
[and] I think it needs to be done with the murdered women.
And I think we need to conduct fatality reviews … as we look at
anything that's quote unquote accidental, suicidal, homicidal,
or undetermined, in my mind, should be reviewed.
40

KI05 (Legal Professional): You know that's hard to say,
because you know, we are getting better provisions like the
Crime Victims Rights Act and there is, you know, consultation
practices. There are notice provisions that are, and we take that
really seriously.
Key Informants made specific references to the types of training
they believed would improve the skill set of staff and the experience
of people seeking assistance, such as mental health awareness and
trauma-informed trainings.
KI12 (Law Enforcement Office/Support): So that the training,
back to that aspect, is to make sure that we're always on the
forefront of what is known. Mental health, we train fairly
extensively, and mental health understanding why people may
walk away, understanding what medications may make people
react differently.
KI08 (Service Provider–Trafficking): That's how [organization]
was, and so when leadership changed and when the structure
of the program changed, we started to use a strength-based
approach, trauma-informed, responsive, harm reduction. All
those things. You know that they need versus you know versus
the purity or a correctional side of things. – culturally-specific
program serving primarily Black youth experiencing trafficking
One KI, however, questioned whether training was actually having
the intended impact, particularly in the field of law enforcement:
KI10 (Data Professional): I…think there's still a lot of, I don't
know if I want to use the word failure, or lack of willingness, to
explore our implicit biases, or even our more obvious biases.
I think that's a it's a hard thing to do, and then I think law
enforcement gets more— the more they get confronted about
it, the more defensive they can be. And so, I should be careful,
because— but I'm retiring at the end of the year, so I can. I don't
have to worry about what I say.
Findings
Another brought up the need for more historical knowledge:
KI01 (Service Provider–Sexual Violence/Domestic Violence):
”Still, I think there's our if we don't acknowledge the history
that goes to the present. We won't get to the roots we've got to
acknowledge the history and be honest about that across the
board and then decide, How do we want to repair that? How
are we going to move forward with different policies that don't
perpetuate harms?
Some Key Informants articulated that many domestic violence
agencies and systems were shaped by white feminist-led
organizations and individuals. They recognized that these structures
and their rules and culture do not “match” well with the situations
faced by Black women and girls, and implied training would be
needed to unlearn habits and practices that would not serve the
needs of a more diverse group of women.
KI04 (Service Provider–Legal Advocate): "I would say the
mainstream of advocacy, the white mainstream movement,
that are women's movements, always wanted to set race aside
and really focus on feminism and those kind of efforts. Not
saying that feminism is not important, but I’m a Black feminist
right so it's different my issues my concerns… the issues are
just different.
KI01 (Service Provider–Sexual Violence/Domestic
Violence):“One of the things that I have encouraged people to
do is like really hold our funders accountable. They’re like, ‘say
what?’ And I'm like yeah, have conversations with them, let's
hold them accountable in the sense that … our women of color
are at greater risk. Yeah, most of your funding goes to protect
and serve white women. Like, help me to understand that...
So if Black women and Native women are becoming missed,
murdered and raped then why do we --Why are we giving X
amount of millions to that “mainstream” organization? I quite
don’t get that. Like, help me to understand.
41

Black women KIs added that in addition to technical knowledge that
might seem “universal” like mental health training, staff needed to
specifically unlearn stereotypes about Black women and girls and in
order to build trust and do their jobs better.
KI02 (Service Provider–Sexual Violence/Domestic Violence): "So
I think, just almost like, how are we gonna resource things with
no predetermined outcomes. And how do we build in? Because
within that, I think we're showing trust in black women girls,
and often, of course, that's not there's so much distrust that is
further extended to black women girls instead of trust and so I
like to you know and hear this from people we serve, too. How
can we start with trust? How can we get to shape and impact
our lives, and that people will, you know, support our informed
decisions?
Another of the KIs discussed the ways white-dominated stereotypes
of female victimhood and deservingness work against Black women
and girls.
KI14 (Service Provider–Trafficking): And so, as the adults
right now, we need to start changing the way, we view and
think of black girls so that they can be seen more as demure
and vulnerable and treated with urgency like their white
counterparts.
While this statement does call out the ways Black girls are de-
feminized and adultified,136 it also seems to suggest that if they
were perceived to be younger or “demure,” then white staff would
be motivated to serve them. However, this still puts the onus on a
traumatized Black girl to act in accordance with racist, sexist norms
of feminine behavior in order to be seen as worthy of help. This is
not only unfair but contradicts what is known about how trauma is
expressed by victims who have not processed what has happened.
KI15 (Child Welfare Professional) made that connection:
KI15 (Child Welfare Professional): I have seen a lot of times
is when there is no cultural agility on the workers' parts they
will pick up, on specifically Black girls and women, how
they speak… If they have a colorful way that they articulate
their needs that seemed to [the worker to] be ‘aggressive,
intimidating, non-compliant, defiant’…No, they're just
passionate, they're hurt, they’re in survival they're going
through all the things….If the [staff] don't have the skill set
Findings
to pick up on [how]this person is really hurting, or this person
is really going through some other things, it's not necessarily
that they're yelling at me it's just the situation has made them
passionate about what they have to say.
KI15’s comments resonate not only with research on trauma and
behavior, but also with the research on white perceptions of Black
women — even those who have not been traumatized — as angry,
loud, and potentially violent. The “Angry Black Woman” stereotype
has been attached not only to working class Black women, but
celebrities like Serena Williams and former First Lady Michelle
Obama. Another Black KI made similar connections between racial
stereotypes and unequal treatment of Black women and girls:
KI02 (Service Provider–Sexual Violence/Domestic Violence):
You know that discrimination is a form of violence. So I think we
think of black women girls we’re largely looked at as still less
than or just ignore disregarded. So things weren't designed by
and for us and on top of that, there's individual biases where
it's society's basically condoning that we are disregarded and
that gets baked into people's thinking. I think it's more about
‘we need to help save them from themselves’ as opposed to
acknowledge the gifts.
KI02’s comment underscores the deficit-orientation and stereotypes
that drive many theories about poverty, violence, and crime, and
how those theories shape policies and procedures. Thus, this KI is
articulating that many actors within the system may not view Black
women and girls as capable beings who can partner with them,
share knowledge and ideas with them about how to find solutions.
Instead, the Black women and girls are envisioned as vessels who
need to be saved and re-shaped in the mold predetermined by the
system.
Other KIs discussed how once one is more culturally aware and
trauma informed, one is able to make better “judgment calls.”
Every day, staff make subjective decisions in the moment that can
have profound impacts on what happens to a girl, woman or her
children. The Black KIs discussed how those subjective decisions
are often shaped by stereotypes, negative expectations, and lack of
relationship to Black families.
42

Theme 3: Resources
LE 11: I feel like a Minnesota, to me, that protects Black women
and actually cares about our lives has a system in place for
things like that. And it doesn't have to be like a random …
advocacy group or domestic violence [organization] that
doesn't even have funding. But always, you know, there are
a lot of these groups that barely have the funding but they're
more effective than the police stations that have billions and
billions of dollars of funding.
Both Lived Experience and Key Informant data analysis reveals a
strong, shared belief that more resources are needed to reduce
the disproportionate harm suffered by Black women and girls.
Black women and girls more often spoke about the need for more
resources to prevent violence and harm, such as stable housing
and educational programming. Key Informants were more focused
on resources that would help them serve women and girls who
had been harmed, such as better data collection or coordination
amongst agencies.
Lived Experience: Housing Stability, Education, & Direct Funding to Black Women Organizers
Housing was one of the main areas LE women named as
contributing to their vulnerability to violence and barrier to
accessing resources.
LE09:I kept having to end my lease. Yeah, I can. Yeah. I kept
moving from home. I kept getting off my lease like every 7
months, like I never had a regular stability house. Most people
live in housing for 5 to 7 years, I am like sitting there raising
their child. No, no, no moving, moving, moving. I mean moving
all the time.
LE 04: Make housing affordable.
Many women reflected that the education system lacked specific
curriculum or staffers to provide information they and their children
needed. For example, one of the women suggested schools provide
resources to help both parents and children become more aware
about mental health needs and warning signs.
LE 15:I don't know, really. Yeah, kids will tell you that. And they
would talk about their parents breaking up or them having to
live somewhere else. So, it was just like, well, I should help the
Findings
Lived Experience:
Housing Stability,
Education, and Direct
Funding to Black
Women Organizers
Key Informants:
Scarcity, Silos, Data
and Distribution
Lived Experience participants called for resources to both address
the socioeconomic conditions that make Black women and girls
vulnerable to violence as well as resources to support them and
their families in the wake of violence or to avoid violence altogether.
LE 05: Social services don’t really exist for single people. Price
of living is too much, so I live with my brother. I wish there was
universal healthcare, housing opportunities for the unhoused,
rent caps, and no credit checks.
parents because people complain about kids, but it's just like,
who's raising the kids, to other parents, so, help the parents,
and then the kids will thrive …
Like a lot of the kids that I speak to because I've worked in
schools, they would like to know about mental health. At least
being able to identify, like, what the symptoms are and like, just
having tools. So even if they can't afford it, just at some point
during that educational experience that they get to learn more.
Another woman talked about the need to educate folks about the
signs of sexual abuse and to help youth understand the ways sex
traffickers try to groom them.
LE13: And it would be focused on teaching about red flags of
sex trafficking, of rapes because all rapes are not just through
sex trafficking. They could be from a family, friends that you
know. And it can actually be same sex, right, but we don't teach
that and we don't have that knowledge. So that's one thing that
I wanna really put my focus on one sign out of here. I do want
to put my focus on that.
43

And, as indicated earlier in the training section, LE participants
lamented the lack of African American history curriculum in schools,
as well as the paltry number of Black teachers.
LE 05: More Black teachers would be good. Also, have you
noticed how cultural competency is taught by white people?
When discussing what happens after they experienced threats or
violence, LE participants spoke to the need for wholistic, one-stop
services where professionals and advocates from a variety of fields
would be available to them.
LE 11-Places where people can go for clothes and food and
education. And I'm sorry like protective classes like fighting
classes and you know, teaching women how to defend
themselves with weapons and without weapons and things of
that nature. So definitely all the funding that we're giving to
police to do nothing should be going to these organizations.
Lived Experience participants emphasized how existing resources
were over-taxed or out of reach, especially shelters, where not
only lack of bed space but restrictions on whether children could
accompany them made it difficult to get help.
LE 04: For me, it’s all about accessibility and availability.
Programs are full, resources are used and exhausted.
Don’t reinvent the wheel, just recreate programs that work,
particularly for families.”
LE DAP 1: Yeah, when the stuff happened to me, you know, they
give you numbers and stuff to connect to others. And you call
these numbers, and oh, we are outside of the area. sure. Oh, we
don't have this service in the area that you live in.
Finally, they described how Black women and girls support each
other in crises, often much better than systems do. These comments
often included a call for direct funding and resources to go to
grassroots initiatives so that women can organize mutual aid and
secure spaces that fit their needs based on their shared experiences.
LE 9: Here are women that are not as fortunate as us, and we'll
be able to weren't able to get away and if they were able to
get away. They weren't able to stay away. So I mean we gotta
Findings
continue to band together as women, of course, but I mean we
gotta. We gotta feel like we have somebody on our side and the
system doesn't always make us feel like that.
LE 13: And a lot of these ladies here have become my support
group they're like my little sisters now, and I try to give them
the knowledge and the wisdom that I have so that the next
time it won't be a next time it'll be, hey? I see this red flag or
I see, this is coming this way, because I feel like this. If a man
loves you, he would not introduce you to drugs. You will not be
a bitch…He's gonna treat you like the queen that you are.
LE 15: More resources towards the people, I know, like some
of the stuff goes to roads and stuff, which is cool. But yeah,
more affordable places to live, right? So affordable housing,
community resources. Whether that's like a garden, so people
grow their own food. [Or] being able to help businesses who
help the community, right?
Black women and girls suggested increased funding to community-
centered programs that are at capacity and could do more if they
had the resources. They recognized that many Black community
organizations and Black survivors are doing the work and do not get
the same level of resources that other agencies and nonprofits get.
They want the state and other institutions to direct funding to folks
who are embedded in community and trusted.
Key Informants: Scarcity, Silos, Data and
Distribution
Many KIs spoke in terms of resource scarcity and distribution.
Some mentioned that they didn’t have enough resources to get
parts of the work done in ways that they felt would serve the
issue of MMAAW. Others spoke to the lack of communication or
coordination between agencies resulting in resources not getting to
people that should receive them.
KI13 & KI14 (Service Providers–Trafficking): You know there's
a break in [communication between] those providers in those
systems. And those agencies and elements don't always
understand what Safe Harbor is and how it's supposed to work
together…
44

KI20 (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office):
Well, all the data is in silos and it's it we need to have it in
a centralized location. So there's two different sets of data
we have. There's the dashboard that's going to keep track of
the progress that the office is making measurable. But then
there's the law enforcement data and that information and
then, having the tribal nations and have access to that data is
challenging too. So trying to get those two different systems,
and I don't know maybe they'll talk to each other. I don't know
trying to figure that out is gonna be challenging, but it can be
done. So how we're gonna do it
Others surmised that lack of sufficient quantitative data or reporting
made it more difficult to make a convincing case for resource
allocation.
KI11 (Data Professional): There's an adage that we sometimes
use in epidemiology: We say, ‘you can't prevent what you can't
count’ and, you know, the foundation activity for whenever you
think you need to engage and step and be programming in an
effort is: you better have a you know, some kind of surveillance
system in place so that you can count it. Otherwise you have no
idea whether or not you're successful.
In this same area of reporting and data, other KIs implied that not
enough Black women and girls are reporting violence or missing
relatives in order to make the system work for them.
KI09 (Law Enforcement Officer/Support): Get them entered.
I mean that unfortunately that's the biggest hurdle, you
know. How else would you enter them missing and get them
reported? As simple as that… Someone's missing. Report it. If
the family member doesn't do it, how do you know?
KI09 (Law Enforcement Officer/Support): I don't know if the
initial individual doesn't want to notify anybody because
of whatever and it doesn't necessarily pertain to one or the
other but you know sometimes they think you know, in my
opinion, ‘oh they have a warrant.’ Well, I don't care about, like
I mentioned, I don't care about the warrant. I care about that
they're missing, you know, reported missing. So no those are
Findings
the things, I mean it's always I bring it back to you know If
they're not reported you know, how do you know that they're
missing? And so it all starts right there. Make the report. You
know, make the report, and once that happens, then the rest of
it starts to fall into place.
This passage suggests that the act of reporting is sufficient to trigger
services that will benefit Black women and girls. In theory, this may
be true, but given the experiences recounted by LE participants,
the act of reporting is neither simple nor devoid of threat. The
interviewee also seems to assume that many Black people aren’t
reporting due to fear of outstanding warrants or past criminal
behavior being used against them, not because they are wary or
mistrustful of how they will be treated.
Some of the Black KIs, like the LE interviewees, spoke about how
lack of housing and other spatial resources contributes to the
vulnerability, and how staff often do not understand the contexts
for Black women who seek safe housing, particularly their need to
be close to family networks and their fear of having child protective
services take their children.
KI16 (Child Welfare Professional): And just yeah, maybe even
like the culturally specific shelters, resource centers, you know.
There's just no access, you know… [and] with every program
there's always like hoops to jump through. I wish there were
like more drop-in centers for women experiencing domestic
violence, or women experiencing some sort of violence, you
know. To be able to have space for a couple of hours without
having to, you know, share everything and be afraid that their
kids are going to be removed…And… you know if a person
is struggling in a domestic violence you know situation the
answer that the court or the department often said you know
tells or direct women to is well, ‘why don't you go to a shelter’
you know, and when they show that out there you know when
women has their own home, or has a home that may not
be suitable right in may that the department doesn't deem
suitable. I think that is just super inconsiderate for anybody
who doesn't live in the neighborhood, you know, in the family
to give that directive.
45

They also gave examples of the ways rules for shelters and other
resources were not designed with Black women and their children
in mind. This created forced choices and further harm for them and
their children.
KI15 (Child Welfare Professional): Another thing that is a
disservice to African-American mothers, well all mothers, but
what I have seen in my professional experiences is that if the
mother has a male child over the age of 14 he can't go to the
shelters with them. So then that leaves for the children, the
young youth, the little young teenagers to be then put on the
streets. And then we wonder why there's so much community
violence. They can't even go to the shelters with their moms.
And then to take it even further, just because of my experience.
I've seen a case like this right where the family went into the
shelter. The young man then started to sell candy at school to
make money so he can find somewhere to sleep for the night
and got suspended from school because he was selling things
during school hours. So I'm like, he's not selling drugs!
KI19 (Housing Professional): “There’s just a really poor narrative
on housing that people live where it’s affordable. That’s not
true. People live where their community is and a lot of times
people are just like, why can’t you just move? You can’t just
move because your cousins are there, your grandma’s there,
Findings
your daycare is there, your mosque is there, your church
is there, your synagogue is there, your business is there,
everything is there. And so when prices continue to increase or
like these top-down models get pushed on communities, it’s
not super insightful or wise.”
Some Black KIs urged that more resources be allocated to Black-led
organizations and Black women and girls themselves.
KI02 (Service Provider–Sexual Violence/Domestic Violence):
“So one thing often [comes up] with black women and girls
[that] we’ll just spend time talking about is: “Hey— Give
us the resources, and we will figure this out without these
predetermined outcomes.” And so I think [sure] come together
and get to co-create those spaces. But they're often not well-
resourced…
KI13 (Service Provider–Trafficking): But again, you know, we
have so many other community resources to provide [for] a lot
of the other ethnicities and races. But the ones that are needed
for. A black community isn't there. So that would be my first and
foremost recommendation is to provide funds and to identify
those in the community who are already doing it. So we can
have a greater light shown on those who are able to connect
with [Black women and girls].
46

Issues Specific to Lived
Experience or Key
Informants
In this section, we first present two issues that emerged only
from the KI dataset that provide important context for challenges
professionals face. Next, we summarize comments from Lived
Experience data regarding police interactions specifically to provide
context for some of the recommendations that follow.
Key Informants: Limited by Current Data, Policies, and Laws
Many of the KIs described the need for either access to or
generation of different data sets to:
• help them assess the scope of MMAAW
• share information with speed and ease
• identify and track cases
• collaborate across departments
Data needs were mentioned specifically for epidemiology for
violent crimes (as in the examples above in the Training section),
missing persons reporting, homicide reporting, and to be used by a
potential MMAAW Office. For instance, an epidemiologist spoke to
sexual exploitation data.
KI11 (Data Professional): The data is challenging... hospital
data, even death certificate data, this is administrative data.
This is not research data. It's not the same quality as research
data, it's a mile wide. It covers the whole State of Minnesota.
But sometimes it's only an inch deep. You can't drill it very far
before it begins losing some of its integrity and we begin to
question what we really have…
[For example] Sexual exploitation is very challenging to
describe using data…we have very little dedicated funding
for some of that work, which is important because that's
where a lot of the missing individuals end up is working as
being sexually exploited number one, and then may also be
trafficked.
Findings
Lived Experience: Do
the Police and Courts
Help Keep Me Safe?
Key Informants:
Limited by Current
Data, Policies, & Laws
KI10 (Data Professional): So even when we would want to
follow up on something ,we were never even sure who to
reach out to, because [if] they don't have that missing person
unit, it might take us a while to get down you know, juvenile,
or you know, kids who are missing that were part of a custody
[situation], just would be in their family and children’s unit.
Some KIs also called for consideration of culturally-specific and
community/public-oriented approaches to data on MMAAW.
Other KIs spoke of their struggles when it came to policies and
practices such as those related to Safe Harbor, AMBER Alerts, and
Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). They described frustrations
with differences across jurisdictions, departments, and variances in
knowledge about procedure, eligibility, and so on.
KI01 (Service Provider–Sexual Violence/Domestic Violence)
The things that are in VAWA, you know, a lot of white women
decided not to listen to black women, and went down the track
of like, “No, this is what VAWA should include,” and what that
led to was mass incarceration…. Moving, taking the funding
and throwing it in the Department of Justice that has, has not
helped things at all.
KI13 (Service Provider-Trafficking): You know, when you speak
to folks who are higher up within the world, you know I've
heard them admit themselves: Safe Harbor just needs to be,
you know, it needs to be rewritten. It's antiquated when it
comes to [the] implementation of it. That's one thing. [...And]
getting that 354 page binder of Safe Harbor, sitting through
the 22 hours of videos that you're supposed to watch?
47

Minnesota State Representative Ruth Richardson: [T]here's
been a number of young black girls that have gone missing in
the last month and none of them have gotten Amber Alert…
But one of the things that we're talking through, because I, you
know, just understanding like the amber alert requirements, I
was asking at the Federal Level: how often the notes are being
reviewed …But it goes directly to what you're talking about,
because it's like we need something on the State level, so that
when we have these situations, that there is actually something
in place, and something that isn't as highly subjective as the
Amber Alert system, because the Amber Alert system lets the
department kind of figure out, “Well, do I think this person's in
danger do I think this person needs an Amber Alert. So within
the space people are making sort of these highly subjective
[decisions] like, “Well, you get Amber alert, but you don't”. Yeah,
and discretion is where the disparity is breeding.
Though these issues are specific to internal operations of agencies
and organizations that serve Black women and girls, the problems
of coordination and shared knowledge resonate with the “run
around” issues that emerged in the Lived Experience data. These
concerns also shed light on the ways frustrations caused by friction
in the system could contribute to staff burnout and turnover.
Lived Experience: Do the Police and Courts
Help Keep Me Safe?
Many of the Lived Experience interviews included descriptions of
what happened when they tried to get help from police or press
charges against an attacker. When these came up, the Black women
and girls raised:
• wanting to be treated fairly by police and not criminalized
• wanting police to follow through when they report
violence, in their view, use the laws available to reduce
harm/keep abuser from harming them further
• lamenting the lack of police trained in
supporting gender violence victims
Findings
LE 13: The police mainly now take the man’s side, basically, if
this is domestic, and he hasn't hurt you or you have not hurt
him. It's like – ‘Well, you guys try to figure it out.’ But if my life
is, if I feel like I'm being threatened, and my life is in jeopardy,
you want me to stay?
Interviewees felt police and prosecutors didn’t really care about
what happened to them and perhaps didn’t use all the legal tools at
their disposal to stop an abuser.
LE DAP 1: And this is not one story—on so many of the occasions
he was given the opportunity to plea on the lower count. Why,
why is that? Why do we have to go through trying times to get
back on our feet? I have to learn how to walk, how to write…I
still have numbness in some parts of my face. I have cuts and
bruises….
But you have his license plate number. You have his address.
Why are you not knocking on his door, arresting him, taking
him to the jail for a few nights to get him to understand ‘Okay
leave this woman alone!’ So yeah, that’s why a lot of us end up
coming up missing. Because our system, the police officers,
they’re just not concerned.
LE 10: You know and it doesn't help when you're calling the
police and you're saying, “Hey, I have a restraining order on
a person that's following me at this moment, and I have a
concealed [gun permit], and I'm carrying and I'm afraid. And
still be told- “Well, until he makes physical contact with you, it's
nothing that we can do.”
The Lived Experience participants also noted that seeking help
exposes them to other potential harm because when system
workers or police file reports or “observe” things in the home, they
may make assumptions that will impact their children, or frame
them as violent if they engage in self-defense.
LE 10: My first instinct is going to be to protect myself for my
child. Then we have to think—we’re left thinking about our
future, [wondering] if we’re going to be taken away from our
child because we had to stop this person.
48

These fears of additional harm to self and family are not unfounded.
There are many recent and historical cases of Black women being
denied benefit of the doubt that they were in danger, like Marissa
Alexander. Though she was living in Florida, a “stand your ground”
state, Ms. Alexander was arrested and jailed for firing a warning
shot into the air to deter her attacker. As mentioned in the literature
review, Black women who report domestic violence are more likely
to be arrested than their white counterparts. For Black mothers,
calling the police raises the stakes significantly for either arrest
or to have their conduct and/or home to be evaluated as unfit for
children, thereby exposing them to potential removal.
Finally, some LE participants suggested that more resources
currently directed to police should be re-directed to Black women
and their communities to address the roots of vulnerability and
violence in a community-centered way rather than within a criminal
justice frame. These participants were also critical of community
outreach efforts by police, saying they felt the police don’t show they
feel a sense of being accountable to Black communities when they
participate in outreach events.
Findings
LE 11: And to me it looks like and I know this might be a little
too radical, but it looks like- No police. Because the things that
I don't think people realize that the police are here to protect
companies. Not necessarily to protect citizens. All of us have
expressed pretty much that that's what it is… But always, you
know, there a lot of these groups barely have the funding but
they're more, you know. They're more effective than the police
stations that have billions and billions of dollars of funding. So
to me that's what that looks like.
LE DAP 1: The police need some serious work here, like, they
need some serious training. They don't hear--- they don't care at
all. I went with the Open Center [to a police community forum]
and we spoke to the representative. And a police[man] was
there, and we brought up questions and suggestions, and he
said nothing. Yeah. Yeah. you know, you have so many people
complaining. There are [valid] community points…We had
all these people complaining. And how about you, you know,
doing X Y and Z to them? You get here to represent the [police]
force and you don't [say] one word? … It's just a norm. It’s like
‘check the box!’
49
“You gotta go to 15 places to get
help. Well, by the time you get to
your fifth place to get some help,
you’re exhausted, you have nothing
else to gain.” Lived Experience Interview

Reflection “The social service run around” is a

questions phrase coined in the Illusion of Choice:
Eviction and Profit in North Minneapolis
report. The run around is a dehumanizing
process that tenants experiencing
evictions face when trying to access
county emergency assistance resources,
and the onerous process of collecting the
forms, paperwork, and permissions at
different places, all within a limited time
and scarce information and help from
county agencies.
What would it look like if our human
service systems were created and
designed by people with lived
experience? How might the processes
and the types of support offered to
community members look and feel
different?

50
 Recommendations

RECOMMENDATIONS
The following recommendations were developed from the data analysis and facilitated discussion sessions with the Task Force and Advisory
Council. These recommendations are proposed to address disparities and harms Black women and girls experience in systems that are
meant to protect them from violence or support them and their families in the wake of violence. In the appendix (page 68), we highlight the
work of previous task forces and reports submitted to the State of Minnesota that are in accord with our report’s findings and recommendations.

Establish a Missing and Murdered African

American Women (MMAAW) Office

Create and fund specific spaces and resources

to serve Black women and girls

Develop effective, culturally appropriate, anti-

racist trainings and professional education for
systems professionals

Hire more African American staff and create

incentives for current Black and people of color
staff to stay and grow in the profession

Implement better coordination across agencies

to increase accessibility of services and
responsiveness

Identify and implement better pathways to both

emergency and long-term housing

51

ESTABLISH A MISSING AND MURDERED AFRICAN
AMERICAN WOMEN OFFICE
We strongly recommend that Black
women and girls with lived experience
are always central partners in the design
of the MMAAW Office and Black women
are hired to establish, implement, and
evaluate the effectiveness of its work. As
the earlier sections of the report illustrate,
the issues driving disparities and harms
that make Black women and girls more
vulnerable to violence are complex with
deep historical roots. Therefore, we want
to recognize and emphasize that one
office on its own cannot be responsible
for and solve all of the intertwined social,
structural, and individual-level problems
that contribute to disproportionate harm
to Black women and girls.
Members of the Task Force and Council, as
well as the data analysis, raised concerns
about where to house an MMAAW,
particularly given the history of harm
and distrust with law enforcement and
perceived and actual imbalances between
funding for reactive law enforcement
efforts versus proactive, preventative
community-centered efforts to reduce
violence against Black women and girls.
Recommendations
Recommendations for possible functions and scope of MMAAW Office:
The Task Force and Advisory Council expressed significant concerns about
ensuring adequate staffing and resources to make the work of the office feasible.
Some of the staffing minimums discussed included: initial staffing consisting
of at least a director, coordinator, victims specialist, two training coordinators,
and clerical staff.
Budget considerations included: a start up fund, funding to partner with Black-
led organizations to design and implement trainings, grant funds to distribute
to community organizations, and funds for continued community-centered
research on impacts.
Search and partner with grantmaking organizations willing to create grant
opportunities to distribute funds to Black women-led community organizations
and new initiatives. Ensure that grantee partners distribute those funds to Black
women and girl-led/approved vendors, initiatives, etc.
Develop effective training and protocols co-designed by Black women and
girls to be later mandated for use by local counties, law enforcement, public
health professionals, shelters, human service providers, and affordable housing
administrators.
Monitor implementation of effective training protocols and professional
development for staff in MMAAW related state agencies and/or state contractors.
Work with Safe Harbor, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, local law
enforcement, and shelters to develop a coordination strategy.
Monitor, evaluate efforts to improve coordination of services across agencies.
Report and provide future recommendations to the legislature annually based
on internal evaluation results from training and coordination assessment work.
52

ESTABLISH A MISSING AND MURDERED AFRICAN
AMERICAN WOMEN OFFICE
With oversight from the Office of Justice
Programs at the Minnesota Department of
Public Safety, it is recommended that the
physical location of the office should be in
a community space to increase community
trust and to ensure the development of
community partnership and empowerment.
Recommendations
Recommendations continued:
Develop and administer culturally informed trauma practices co-developed
by Black women and girls in all housing shelters and service delivery
organizations throughout the state.
Work with an outside research firm with relevant background to support the
tracking of data on MMAAW, and develop tools/supports to evaluate whether
recommendations result in decreases in harm and identifying next steps for
further improvement.
• Staffing should include data specialist or research consultant
to build tracking and reporting infrastructure
• Utilize mixed-methods approaches to evaluate, monitor,
and communicate in consultation with community
Work to create a public dashboard to identify wraparound services and/or
direct people to advocates and/or service centers. Requires the creation of
statewide partnerships.
Assess need for a hotline and establish a help line if relevant to fill a gap.
Publicize the hotline/helpline with PSAs and other media presence and hire
adequate staff to support the hotline/helpline.
Create an Advisory Council similar to that created in conjunction with the
MMAAW Task Force to provide oversight from women with lived experience on
proposed legislation and design of the MMAAW Office.
53
 Recommendations

CREATE AND FUND SPECIFIC SPACES AND

RESOURCES TO SERVE BLACK WOMEN AND

The review of literature and data analysis reveal significant gaps in access to and services for Black women and girls who
are victims of violence, seek to deter or escape violence, or seek other social supports that serve to reduce vulnerability
to violence. Black women and girls themselves have ideas based on lived experience and intergenerational knowledge
that can be applied to generate better protections and support for themselves, if resources were available.

Direct funds to address disparities faced by Black women and girls who have experienced or are experiencing homelessness, violence or
systemic neglect.

Direct funds to increase or create specific housing that specializes in supporting Black women and girls within their communities that does
not concentrate poverty, but provide opportunity and access if desired.

HIRE AND RETAIN AFRICAN AMERICAN STAFF

Data from Key Informants overall emphasized hiring more people who reflect the experiences of Black women and girls,
but we also note that retention of existing Black staff is key to avoid a “revolving door” situation. Black women Key
Informants relayed how taxing their experiences within systems are, which can lead to burnout and departure for other

Review and re-imagine minimum requirements for jobs. For example, college degree requirements are often barriers to Black women
applicants, even if their lived experience and other forms of knowledge would make them excellent staff to work on issues related to
MMAAW. As the experiences and suggestions of Black women and girls illustrate, having staff whose experiences overlap or resonate
with theirs is very important to survivors.

Create means for African American applicants with Lived Experience and community knowledge have accelerated pathways to
credentialing for those jobs where such credentials are essential to providing services or leadership and/or other forms of professional
development.

To address burnout and turnover of Black professionals, provide specific training and retention support for Black, Indigenous and
people of color staff to:

• highlight and encourage pathways to advancement/leadership

• acknowledge they are also harmed by systemic racism
• provide resources to repair harm and incentivize staying in the profession

54
 Recommendations

DEVELOP EFFECTIVE, CULTURALLY

APPROPRIATE, ANTI-RACIST TRAININGS &

The data speak clearly to the need for better, consistent training for professionals who work with Black women and girls
to build trust and repair historical harms. Training should be relevant to the specific area of service or professional field,
and periodic to build skills and respond to emergent issues.

Develop comprehensive and ongoing anti-racist trainings and education for system professionals, including staff in K-12 schools. Content
for these trainings should include: culturally-informed trauma awareness; asset-based, survivor centered approaches to serving Black
women and girls; anti-racist training with intersectional awareness

Customized examples and approaches specific to the history of the field’s impact on Black women and girls, particularly the types of harm
Black women and girls have suffered, for example:

• Training for hospital staff to not (re)traumatize Black women and unlearn medical racism that leads to undertreatment of
pain or denial or pain medication to Black women due to stereotypes about hyper-strength, or predilection to addiction.
• Training for K-12 school staff to end adultification of Black girls and identify signs of trauma and curriculum development
for students to help identify red flags for trafficking, develop skills around mental health, and comprehensive
sexual health education that includes discussions of coercion and other forms of relationship violence.
• Training for government staff to interact respectfully and productively with Lived Experience visiting speakers,
consultants, expert testimony sessions, including paying adequate compensation for Lived Experience experts.

Create plans to effectively communicate training opportunities widely. Ensure supervisors are creating appropriate schedules for
training and professional development opportunities to improve outcomes for MMAAW related issues.

When contracting with trainers, the state should aim to work with firms that affirm or facilitate: survivor- or lived experience-led training;
design and leadership by Black women and girls; and pathways for women with lived experience to design and lead training.

Given large inequities in state contracts, develop pathways for Black-led organizations and trainers to become training contractors.

Broadly market opportunities for new vendors, particularly Black and POC vendors, to bid for upcoming training contracts.

Provide fair compensation for Black trainers, Lived Experience contributors, and firms. Provide access to care and trauma-informed
support for lived experience contributors/trainers.

Include time and funding to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of training to assess whether the learnings and skills are being
implemented and create the desired change. Plans for training and evaluation should be reviewed by MMAAW office to assess fidelity
and alignment with the mission and goals of MMAAW.

55
 Recommendations

DESIGN AND SUPPORT BETTER COORDINATION

ACROSS AGENCIES

Coordinating across the many agencies and offices that relate to issues of MMAAW is key to reducing the frustrations,
fears, and roadblocks Black women and girls experience as well as to provide better support and increase effectiveness
of professionals who have to navigate a wide variety of systems with different sets of rules and expectations.

Develop plans to provide a range of services in spaces that serve survivors of violence, such as shelters and health clinics, that meets the
range of needs to fully serve survivors and/or families of victims. Coordinate systems of referrals to other services so that the burden is not
on survivors or victims’ families to do the legwork. Systems coordination should reflect at least three levels: direct services, agencies with
grantees, and the MMAAW Office.

Create a new statewide missing persons database for law enforcement to access and require local jurisdictions to regularly update entries
(suggested time frame: every 72 hours).

Allow survivors to file police reports without visiting police stations. Improve communications plans so it is clear to survivors where they
currently have the option to make a report from a shelter, hospital, or other agency. Ensure staff inform survivors they have that option
where it is currently available.

Review and revise coordination mechanisms and communications between Safe Harbor, State Missing Persons Clearinghouse, and local
law enforcement.

Increase training for law enforcement on missing person requirements.

• Coordinate with the Minnesota County Attorneys Association and other organizations to make
MMAAW a required topic of coordinated training for prosecutors and judges.
• Amend Minnesota Statute 13.822 to include MMAAW as a related topic in the 40 hours of required training for
sexual assault advocates. Ensure that community-based organizations are involved in providing the training.
• Coordinate with the Minnesota Legislature and the Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Board
to change law enforcement officer licensing requirements to include training on MMAAW.
• Coordinate with relevant professional and continuing education programs (law enforcement, law and legal,
healthcare, social work, teaching) in colleges and universities in Minnesota to add MMAAW to curriculum.

Coordinate with the MMAAW Office to design or implement specific training and education for interagency coordination about MMAAW.

Allow for digitization of personal documents of clients to lower the burden to receive services so they can be easily accessed while
maintaining privacy protections across systems.

Coordinate with the MMAAW Office to expedite survivors/victims and their families’ access to police reports and other pertinent records.

56
 Recommendations

ENACT POLICIES / REFORMS TO MAKE

EMERGENCY AND LONG-TERM HOUSING

This recommendation reiterates findings and recommendations from the Minnesota State of the State’s Housing
Report, as well as the report of the Select Committee on Racial Justice: Black women and girls are among the most
severely impacted by the housing crisis. Therefore, efforts to increase short term and permanent affordable housing
options is a necessity to reduce Black women and girls’ vulnerability to violence.

Re-emphasizing a previous recommendation, create funding for Black and/or BIPOC specific shelters and emergency safe houses.

Review and remove prohibitory eligibility restrictions for existing shelters — such as geographic residency, age of children, etc.— to make
them more accessible to Black women, and their families.

Create housing policies and practices that cater to and accept non-traditional family structures outside the “nuclear family.”

Create shelter spaces where older children (18-21 years old) or vulnerable family members of any gender identity can stay with their
parent or caregiver.

Remove barriers such as credit reports, prior address, and landlord refusal to rent to domestic violence (DV) victims. Enact better
regulation of Violence Against Woman Act processes, which would prevent landlords from such discrimination. Hold landlords
accountable through these regulatory actions.

Within the MMAAW Office, create a housing-specific program and community advisory board in partnership with the Minnesota
Housing Finance Agency in order to revamp affordable housing through community collaboration.

Within the MMAAW Office, revamp and redesign home-ownership programs (like Tree Trust) that prioritizes Black homeowners and
gives buyers 100 percent ownership of land and property.

57
“For me, it’s all about accessibility
and availability. Programs are full,
resources are used and exhausted.
Don’t reinvent the wheel, just
recreate programs that work,
particularly for families.” Lived Experience Interview

Reflection How might our social service systems,

questions shelters, and law enforcement agencies
invest in equitable evaluation and
community centered annual reporting
that is inclusive and reflective of the
community’s definition of success?
How might our institutions show up
differently if they believed they were
beholden to impacted communities, not
the board, the elected official, or the
agency leadership?

58
 Endnotes

ENDNOTES Women Had to Go Though A Plenty’”: Sexual Exploitation of African-

American Slave Women,” Journal of Women's History, 1, no. 3
(1990):45-74, doi:10.1353/jowh.2010.0050; Jennifer L. Morgan,
1. The United States of America’s Compliance with the International
“‘Hannah and Hir Children’: Reproduction and Creolization Among
Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Parallel
Enslaved Women.” Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender
Report Relating to Rights of Women and Girls of Color. Report
in New World Slavery, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
submitted to the State of Minnesota Missing and Murdered African
Press, 2004); Richard H. Steckel, “Women, Work, and Health Under
American Women Task Force, July 15, 2022, 3. The CERD Parallel
Plantation Slavery In The United States.” In More Than Chattel: Black
Report draws on statistics from the National Center for Missing and
Women and Slavery in the Americas, 43–60.; Shauna J Sweeney,
Exploited Children, analyzed in Petrosky et al,. “Racial and Ethnic
“Gendering Racial Capitalism and the Black Heretical Tradition.” In
Differences in Homicides of Adult Women and the Role of Intimate
Histories of Racial Capitalism, eds. Justin Leroy and Destin Jenkins
Partner Violence — United States, 2003–2014.” DOI: http://dx.doi.
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2021), 53-63.
org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6628a1External.
9. “Fact Sheet: Eugenics and Scientific Racism.” NIH National
2. Statistics available from NCIC at https://le.fbi.gov/informational-
Human Genome Research Institute, accessed September 14, 2022,
tools/ncic
https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Eugenics-
and-Scientific-Racism
3. CERD Parallel Report, 3.
10. See Angela Sani’s summary of 18th and 19th century race
4. “Black survivors and sexual trauma,” Time’s Up Foundation,
‘science’ and how many of the ideas established in those centuries
May 20, 2020. https://timesupfoundation.org/black-survivors-and-
reverberate to this day in her book Superior: The Return of Race
sexual-trauma/
Science (New York: Penguin/Random House, 2019). See also
Harvard University Library’s online resource “Confronting Anti-Black
5. “Research Report: 2022 Status of Women and Girls in
Racism: Scientific Racism.” https://library.harvard.edu/confronting-
Minnesota,” Women’s Foundation of Minnesota and the Center
anti-black-racism/scientific-racism
on Women, Gender, and Public Policy of the Humphrey School
of Public Affairs, 23. https://wfmn.wpenginepowered.com/wp-
11. The head of the Louisiana State Medical Convention, Dr. Samuel
content/uploads/2022/03/WFMN-2022-Status-of-Women-Girls-in-
Cartwright, articulated the pathology of this disease in an address
MN.pdf
in 1849, and published a treatise on it in 1851. “Treatment” for the
disease was harsh punishment. A sample of Dr. Cartwright’s treatise
6. See review of historical records and legal statutes by Elizabeth
is available on the PBS “Africans in America” web exhibit: https://
Kennedy, “Victim Race and Rape.” Feminist Sexual Ethics Project,
www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3106t.html
Brandeis University, 2003. Accessed September 14, 2022, https://
www.brandeis.edu/projects/fse/slavery/united-states/kennedy.html
12. Patricia Hill Collins calls these stereotypes “controlling images.”
See Chapter Four, “Mammies, Matriarchs, and other Controlling
7. See Dorothy Roberts’ extensive history of the ways medical
Images,” in her book Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge,
science has abused Black women’s bodies, Killing the Black Body:
Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York:
Race, Reproduction and The Meaning of Liberty (New York: Random
Routledge, 1991).
House/Pantheon, 1997).

13. See bell hooks, Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism
8. Cheryll Ann Cody. “Cycles of Work and Childbearing: Seasonality
(Boston: South End Press, 1981); Angela Davis, Women Race and
in Women’s Lives on Low Country Plantations.” In More Than
Class and Women, Culture and Politics (New York: Random House,
Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas, eds. David B.
1989); and Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought. For historical review
Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine (Bloomington: Indiana University
of how the press treated Black women victims of sexual violence as
Press, 1996), 61–78; Angela Davis, Women Race and Class (New
non-victims, see Estelle B. Freedman, “’Crimes Which Startle and
York: Random House, 1981); Thelma Jennings, “‘Us Colored
Horrify’: Gender, Age, and the Racialization of Sexual Violence in

59

White American Newspapers, 1870-1900.” Journal of the History of
Sexuality, 20 (2011): 3, 465-497.
14. Black scholars from WEB DuBois and Ida B. Wells to
Manning Marable and Patricia Williams have consistently and
comprehensively detailed the ways white supremacy continues to
thwart freedom and democracy. See DuBois’ Black Reconstruction
(New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935); Wells, Southern Horrors, 1892;
Marable, Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction
in Black America, 1945-1990 (Jackson, MS and London: University
Press of Mississippi, 1991); and Williams’ The Alchemy of Race and
Rights (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).
15. See William Green’s books A Peculiar Imbalance: The Fall and
Rise of Racial Inequality in Minnesota, 1837-1869 (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2007) and Degrees of Freedom:
The Origins of Civil Rights in Minnesota, 1865-1912 (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2015) for extensive histories of Black
Minnesotans’ fight for equal rights and civil treatment since the
establishment of the Minnesota territory.
16. Sani, Superior.
17. Marlon Riggs, Ethnic Notions. Documentary, California
Newsreel, 1987.; Catherine R. Squires, African Americans and the
Media (Cambridge UK: Polity Press, 2009).
18. Rebecca Epstein, Jamila J. Blake and Thalia Gonzales,
“Girlhood Interrupted: The erasure of Black girls’ childhood.”
Georgetown Law Center, 2017 Accessed September 14, 2022.
https://genderjusticeandopportunity.georgetown.edu/wp-content/
uploads/2020/06/girlhood-interrupted.pdf
19. See Collins’ analysis of the Moynihan Report and its
deployment of stereotypes in Black Feminist Thought, 74-75;
Manning Marable, The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of
Race in American Life (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2002). For
a review and updated analysis of the report’s shortcomings, see
Gergory Acs et al, “The Moynihan Report Revisited.” The Urban
Institute, accessed September 15, 2022. https://www.urban.org/
sites/default/files/publication/23696/412839-The-Moynihan-
Report-Revisited.PDF
20. Josh Levin, “The Welfare Queen.” Slate.com. December 19,
2021. Accessed May 12, 2022. http://www.slate.com/articles/
news_and_politics/history/2013/12/linda_taylor_welfare_queen_
Endnotes
ronald_reagan_made_her_a_notorious_american_villain.html
Levin explains how, in a campaign speech, Ronald Reagan shared
the story of the welfare fraud case of Linda Taylor: "In Chicago,
they found a woman who holds the record. She used 80 names,
30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social
Security, veterans' benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran
husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone
has been running $150,000 a year." Though this was clearly an
exceptionally rare case of extreme fraud, it became enmeshed with
already existing stereotypes about Black women as bad mothers,
prone to bad behavior and excessive, gaudy spending.
21. Laura Briggs, How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics:
From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump (Oakland, CA:
University of California Press, 2017); Carly Hayden Foster, “The
Welfare Queen: Race, Gender, Class and Public Opinion.” Race,
Gender and Class 15, no. 3/4 (2008): 162-179. Accessed September
14, 2022. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41674659
22. Khiara M. Bridges, ”The Deserving Poor, the Undeserving
Poor, and Class-Based Affirmative Action,” Emory Law Journal 66
(2017): 1049-1114. Accessed September 14, 2022 from https://
scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/65; See also Foster,
“The Welfare Queen: Race, Gender, Class, and Public Opinion,”
162-179; Xandi McMahon, “The non-consensual identity politics of
the ‘welfare queen.’” Compass: The Gallatin Research Journal, New
York University. Accessed September 14, 2022. https://wp.nyu.edu/
compass/2018/11/13/the-non-consensual-identity-politics-of-the-
welfare-queen/
23. See especially Chapter Two of Briggs, “Welfare Reform: The
Vicious Campaign to Reform 1 Percent of the Budget” in How All
Politics Became Reproductive Politics.
24. See Thomas M. Shapiro’s path-breaking study of the racial
wealth gap, The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How
Wealth Perpetuates Inequality (Oxford, UK and New York: Oxford
University Press, 2004). The wealth gap has also been documented
and cited by many other scholars and think tanks, such as the
Brookings Institution, cited in later sections of this report.
25. Marable, The Great Wells of Democracy, 22.
26. Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of
Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination
Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” 1989, University
60

of Chicago Legal Forum, accessed September 7, 2022, https://
chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8/
27. African American Policy Forum, “A Primer on Intersectionality,”
accessed September 6, 2022, https://www.aapf.org/_files/
ugd/62e126_19f84b6cbf6f4660bac198ace49b9287.pdf
28. “The curious logic in Moore reveals not only the narrow
scope of antidiscrimination doctrine and its failure to embrace
intersectionality, but also the centrality of white female experiences
in the conceptualization of gender discrimination. One inference
that could be drawn from the court's statement that Moore's
complaint did not entail a claim of discrimination "against females"
is that discrimination against Black females is something less
than discrimination against females. More than likely, however,
the court meant to imply that Moore did not claim that all females
were discriminated against but only Black females. But even thus
re- cast, the court's rationale is problematic for Black women. The
court rejected Moore's bid to represent all females apparently be-
cause her attempt to specify her race was seen as being at odds with
the standard allegation that the employer simply discriminated
"against females." Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of
Race and Sex,” 141-142.
29. Nina Banks, “Black Women’s labor market history reveals deep-
seated race and gender discrimination.” Economic Policy Institute,
February 19, 2019, accessed September 6, 2022, https://www.epi.
org/blog/black-womens-labor-market-history-reveals-deep-seated-
race-and-gender-discrimination/. See also Jacqueline Jones, Labor
of Love, Labor of Sorrow : Black Women, Work, and the Family from
Slavery to the Present (New York: Vintage Books, 1986).
30. Matilde Roux, “Five facts about Black women in the labor force,”
U.S. Department of Labor, August 3, 2021, accessed September 6,
2022, https://blog.dol.gov/2021/08/03/5-facts-about-black-women-
in-the-labor-force
31. Will McGrew, “How workplace segregation fosters wage
discrimination for African American women.” Washington Center
for equitable Growth, August 2018, accessed September 14, 2022.
https://equitablegrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/082818-
african-american-women-paygap.pdf
32. Banks, “Black women’s labor market history.”
33. “Women of Color and the Gender Wage Gap,” Center
Endnotes
for American Progress, November 17, 2021. https://www.
americanprogress.org/article/women-of-color-and-the-wage-gap/
34. McGrew, “How workplace segregation fosters wage
discrimination.”
35. Olga Alonso-Villar and Coral del Río ”The Occupational
Segregation of African American Women: Its Evolution from 1940
to 2010, Feminist Economics, 23, no.1 (2017):108-134, DOI:
10.1080/13545701.2016.1143959
36. Madison Matthews and. Valerie Wilson, “Separate is still
unequal: How patterns of occupational segregation impact pay for
black women,”United Steel Workers, August 11, 2018, accessed
September 6, 2022. https://m.usw.org/blog/2018/separate-is-still-
unequal-how-patterns-of-occupational-segregation-impact-pay-for-
black-women
37. Roux, “Five facts about Black women in the labor force.”
38. McGrew, “How workplace segregation fosters wage
discrimination.”
39. Minnesota Women’s Foundation and Center for Gender,
Women, and Public Policy, “2022 Status of Women and Girls in
Minnesota,” https://wfmn.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/
uploads/2022/03/WFMN-2022-Status-of-Women-Girls-in-MN.pdf.
40. Minnesota Women’s Foundation, “2022 Status of Women and
Girls in Minnesota.”
41. Brittany Lewis, “The State of Black Women’s Economics in
Minnesota,” Kris Nelson Community-Based Research Program,
Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) at the University of
Minnesota. Accessed September 16, 2022, University of Minnesota
Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/179867.
42. Kriston McIntosh et al., “Examining the Black-white wealth
gap.” Brookings Institute, February 27, 2020, accessed September
16, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/
examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/; Shapiro, The Hidden Cost
of being African American; Dr. Samuel Myers, “The Minnesota
Paradox,” Roy Wilkins Center, accessed September 16, 2022,
https://www.hhh.umn.edu/research-centers/roy-wilkins-center-
human-relations-and-social-justice/minnesota-paradox.
61

43. Ben Horowitz et al., “Systemic Racism Haunts Homeownership
Rates in Minnesota.” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis,
February 25, 2021, accessed September 16, 2022, https://
www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2021/systemic-racism-haunts-
homeownership-rates-in-minnesota
44. McIntosh et al. “Examining the Black-white wealth gap.”
45. James L. Stroud, “South Minneapolis Reflects on an Historic
Racial Conflictt,” Minnesota Spokesman Recorder, May 11.
20111, accessed October 4, 2022, https://spokesman-recorder.
com/2011/05/18/south-minneapolis-reflects-historic-racial-conflict/
46. Horowitz et al “Systemic Racism Haunts Homeownership”;
Common Bond Communities, “What causes the lack of affordable
housing in Minnesota?” September 21, 2021, accessed September
16, 2022, https://commonbond.org/what-causes-the-lack-of-
affordable-housing-in-minnesota/
47. Minnesota Housing Partnership, State of the State’s Housing
2019: Biennial Report of the Minnesota Housing Partnership, 2019,
accessed September 6, 2022, https://mhponline.org/state-of-the-
state-s-housing-2019/
48. Lincoln Quillian, John J. Lee and Brandon Honoré, “Racial
Discrimination in the U.S. Housing and Mortgage Lending
Markets: A Quantitative Review of Trends, 1976-2016,” Race and
Social Problems 12 (2020): 13-28; Samuel Myers, Won Fy Lee
and Jermaine Toney, “Responsible banking in the Twin Cities,”
Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice, 2015,
accessed September 14, 2022, https://www.hhh.umn.edu/research-
centers/roy-wilkins-center-human-relations-and-social-justice/
publications-and-presentations-roy-wilkins-center
49. McIntosh et. al, “Examining the Black-white wealth gap.”
50. Jacob S. Rugh and Douglas S. Massey, “Racial Segregation and
the American Foreclosure Crisis.” American Sociological Review 75
no. 5 (2010) accessed September 6, 2022, https://www.ncbi.nlm.
nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4193596/. In the 2007 economic crisis,
Black and Latinx homeowners were more likely to lose their homes.
Pugh and Massey’s study of the subprime loan crisis concluded that
“Hispanic and black homeowners, not to mention entire Hispanic
and black neighborhoods, ended up bearing the brunt of the
foreclosure crisis and this outcome was not simply a result of neutral
market forces, but was structured on the basis of race and ethnicity
Endnotes
though the social fact of residential segregation.”
51. House Select Committee on Racial Justice, Report to the
Minnesota State Legislature, December 22, 2020, accessed
September 14, 2022, https://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/comm/
docs/tElVeP6cVEaYSyh0-o0utQ.pdf, 14; see also Minnesota Housing
Partnership, State of the State’s Housing 2019.
52. Common Bond Communities, “What causes the lack of
affordable housing in Minnesota?”
53. Ibid.
54. Emily Benfer et al, “Eviction, Health Inequity, and the Spread
of COVID-19: Housing strategy as a primary pandemic mitigation
strategy.” Journal of Urban Health 98 (2021): 1-12, doi: 10.1007/
s11524-020-00502-1
55. “Increase Safe, Affordable, Stable Housing For All People Living
In Minnesota,” Minnesota Department of Health, Child and Family
Health, May 7, 2021, accessed September 14, 2022, https://www.
health.state.mn.us/docs/communities/titlev/housing2021.pdf; see
also Dr. Brittany Lewis, et al., “The Illusion of Choice: Evictions and
Profit in North Minneapolis,” CURA, 2019, accessed September 14,
2022, http://evictions.cura.umn.edu
56. Minnesota Women’s Foundation, “2022 Status of Women and
Girls in Minnesota.”
57. Benfer et al, ”Eviction, Health Inequity, and the Spread of
COVID-19,” 4.
58. “Increase safe, affordable, stable housing,” 1.
59. House Select Committee on Racial Justice, 22.
60. Dr. Rachel Hardeman, PhD, MPH, “Black Maternal Health:
Getting at the Root Cause of Inequity.” Invited testimony to the
Minnesota House Health Finance and Policy Committee, February
10, 2021, accessed September 14, 2022, https://www.house.
leg.state.mn.us/comm/docs/jxcJts0rmE6fMILpfcbbcw.pdf. See
especially work cited on slide 14.
61. Arline T. Geronimous et al, “’Weathering’ and age patterns of
allostatic load.” American Journal of Public Health 95 no.6 (May
2006), accessed September 18, 2022, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.
gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470581/
62

62. Laura Chyu and Dawn M. Upchurch, “Racial And Ethnic Patterns
Of Allostatic Load Among Adult Women In The United States:
Findings From The National Health And Nutrition Examination
Survey 1999-2004.” Journal of Women’s Health, 20 no. 4 (April
2011), accessed September 18, 2022, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.
nih.gov/21428732/
63. Chloe Reichl, “Toxic Waste Sites and Environmental Justice:
Research Roundup,” The Journalist’s Resource, Harvard University
Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy,
September 24, 2018, accessed September 18, 2022, https://
journalistsresource.org/environment/superfund-toxic-waste-race-
research/
64. House Select Committee on Racial Justice, 25-26.
65. Kelly M. Hoffman et al, “Racial Bias In Pain Assessment And
Treatment Recommendations, And False Beliefs About Biological
Differences Between Blacks And Whites,” Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences 113(16). https://www.pnas.org/
doi/10.1073/pnas.1516047113
66. Amy Roeder, “America Is Failing Its Black Mothers.” Harvard
Public Health Magazine, Winter 2019, accessed September 18,
2022, https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/
america-is-failing-its-black-mothers/
67. “Health Disparities—even in the face of socioeconomic
success—baffle experts,” American Heart Association News, February
13, 2019, accessed September 18, 2022, https://www.heart.
org/en/news/2019/02/13/health-disparities-even-in-the-face-of-
socioeconomic-success-baffle-experts.
68. Hardeman, “Black Maternal Health.”
69. Jamila Taylor et al. “Eliminating disparities in maternal and
infant mortality: A Comprehensive Policy Blueprint.” May 2, 2019,
accessed September 18, 2022, https://www.americanprogress.org/
article/eliminating-racial-disparities-maternal-infant-mortality/
70. Roeder, “America is Failing its Black Mothers.”
71. Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick and Other Essays (Boston: The
New Press), 91-92
72. Roberts, Killing the Black Body.
Endnotes
73. Elizabeth Jekanowski, “Voluntarily, for the Good of Society:
Norplant, Coercive Policy, and Reproductive Justice.” Berkeley Public
Policy Journal, Fall 2018, accessed September 22, 2022,
74. A study of nearly 100 million traffic stops found that Black
drivers were 20 percent more likely to be pulled over than white
drivers, but white drivers who were stopped on suspicion were
more likely to have guns or illegal drugs. Emma Pierson et al., “A
Large-Scale Analysis Of Racial Disparities In Police Stops Across The
United States,” Nature: Human Behavior 4 (July 2020), accessed
September 14, 2022 at the Stanford Open Policing Project https://
openpolicing.stanford.edu. Similar patterns of overrepresentation
of Black drivers stopped were also found in Minnesota in a 2003
study cited by the House Select Committee on Racial Justice.
See also the ACLU’s 2007 Report, “The Persistence Of Racial And
Ethnic Profiling In The United States,” https://www.aclu.org/report/
persistence-racial-and-ethnic-profiling-united-states
75. Shaun Gabbidon and George Higgins, Shopping While Black:
Consumer Racial Profiling in America (New York: Routledge, 2020).
76. See Khalil Gibran Muhammad’s comprehensive history
of how the field of sociology, alongside government statistical
institutions, shaped the ideology that Black people are more
inclined to criminal behavior, and Black scholars’ and leaders’
attempts to push back on that narrative in The Condemnation of
Blackness: Race Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010). See analysis of
how local news media coverage underrepresents white criminals
and overrepresents white victims, “Good Guys Are Still Always
White?” Communication Research, 44 no.6 (2015), https://doi.
org/10.1177/0093650215579223. See also Jean Marie Brown’s
discussion of research findings of overrepresentation of Black
family members as criminals and news media reckoning with
their contribution to criminal stereotyping. “Newsrooms Begin To
Reflect On Their Roles In Systemic Racism,” Maynard Institute for
Journalism Education, accessed September 22, 2022, https://mije.
org/resources/systemic-racism-jmbrown.html.
77. Minnesota Women’s Foundation, “2022 Status of Women and
Girls in Minnesota,”
78. Mackenzie Chakara, “From Pre-school to Prison: The
Criminalization of Black Girls,” Center for American Progress,
December 8, 2017, accessed September 22, 2022, https://www.
americanprogress.org/article/preschool-prison-criminalization-
63

black-girls/); Jabari Julien, "Leveraging Title VI and the
Administrative Complaint Process to Challenge Discriminatory
School Dress Code Policies." Columbia Law Review 119 (2019),
accessed September 22, 2022, https://www.columbialawreview.
org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Julien-Leveraging_Title_VI.pdf
79. Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, et al. “Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out,
Overpoliced and Underprotected,”African American Policy Forum,
Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies 2015, accessed
September 22, 2022, https://www.aapf.org/blackgirlsmatter.
80. “Fact Sheet: Incarcerated Women and Girls,” The Sentencing
Project, May 12, 2022, accessed September 22, 2022, https://www.
sentencingproject.org/fact-sheet/incarcerated-women-and-girls/
81. Minnesota Women’s Foundation,“2020 Status of Women and
Girls in Minnesota,” accessed September 22, 2022, https://wfmn.
wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/WFM-
2020StatusReport-DIGITAL.pdf
82. Epstein, Blake and Gonzales, “Girlhood Interrupted.”
83. Crenshaw et al., “Black girls Matter.”
84. Ibid.
85. Julien, "Leveraging Title VI,” Crenshaw et al., “Black Girls
Matter,” Connie Wun, "Unaccounted Foundations: Black Girls,
Anti-Black Racism, and Punishment in Schools." Critical Sociology
1 (2014),14, accessed September 22, 2022, https://doi.
org/10.1177/0896920514560444
86. Epstein, Blake and Gonzales, “Girlhood Interrupted.”
87. Lauren Martin and Alexandrea Pierce. “Mapping the Market
for Sex with Trafficked Minor Girls in Minneapolis: Structures,
Functions, and Patterns.” Women’s Foundation of Minnesota,
University of Minnesota Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement
Center (UROC), and Othayonih Research, 2014, accessed September
22, 2022, https://uroc.umn.edu/sites/uroc.umn.edu/files/2019-11/
MTM_Fullpercent 20Report_2014.pdf
88. “The Action-Means-Purpose Model,” Polaris Project, 2012,
accessed May 12, 2022, https://humantraffickinghotline.org/sites/
default/files/AMP%20Model.pdf
Endnotes
89. The full text of Minnesota Statute 609.321 is available at
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.321
90. Lauren Martin, Christina Melander; Harshada Karnik, and
Corelle Nakamura. “Mapping the Demand: Sex Buyers in the
State of Minnesota.” Retrieved from the University of Minnesota
Digital Conservancy September 22, 2022, https://hdl.handle.
net/11299/226520.
91. Duren Banks and Tracey Kyckelhahn, “Characteristics of
Suspected Human Trafficking Incidents, 2008-2010. U.S.
Department of Justice,Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2011, accessed
September 20, 2022, https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/
cshti0810.pdf
92. Lauren Martin, Barbara McMorris, Katie Johnston-Goodstar,
and Nic G. Ride. “Trading Sex and Sexual Exploitation among High
School Students: Data from the 2019 Minnesota Student Survey.”
Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy
September 22, 2022, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/226837.
93. Jennifer Cole and. Ginny Sprang, “Sex Trafficking of Minors
in Metropolitan, Micropolitan, and Rural Communities.” Child
Abuse and Neglect 40 (February 2015): 113–23, doi:10.1016/j.
chiabu.2014.07.015; Lisa Fedina et al., “Racial and Gender
Inequalities in Food, Housing, and Healthcare Insecurity Associated
with Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence,” Journal of Interpersonal
Violence 37 no.23/24 (2022) doi:10.1177/08862605221077231.
94. Michele Goodwin, “The New Jane Crow.” Just Security, July
20, 2020, accessed September 22, 2022, https://www.justsecurity.
org/71509/the-new-jane-crow-womens-mass-incarceration/
95. “Black Children Continue to Be Disproportionately Represented
in Foster Care.” Kids Count Data Center, Annie E. Casey Foundation,
April 12, 2020, accessed September 22, 2022, https://datacenter.
kidscount.org/updates/show/264-us-foster-care-population-by-race-
and-ethnicity
96. Cheryl Nelson Butler, “The Racial Roots of Human Trafficking.”
UCLA Law Review 62 (2015), accessed September 22, 2022, https://
www.uclalawreview.org/racial-roots-human-trafficking/; Zach
Sommers, “Missing White Woman Syndrome: An Empirical Analysis
of Race and Gender Disparities in Online News Coverage of Missing
Persons.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 106 no.2
(2016): 275–314.
64

97. Martin and Pierce, “Mapping the Market.”
98. Ibid.
99. Ibid.
100. Priscilla A. Ocen, "(E) racing Childhood: Examining the
Racialized Construction of Childhood and Innocence in the
Treatment of Sexually Exploited Minors," UCLA Law Review 62
(2015), accessed September 29, 2022, https://www.uclalawreview.
org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Ocen-final_8.15.pdf
101. Nelson Butler, “The Racial Roots of Human Trafficking.”
102. Ocen, “(E)racing Childhood.”
103. Minnesota Department of Human Rights. “Investigation into
the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Police Department:
Findings from the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.”
April 27,2022,accessed September 21, 2022, https://mn.gov/
mdhr/assets/Investigation%20into%20the%20City%20of%20
Minneapolis%20and%20the%20Minneapolis%20Police%20
Department_tcm1061-526417.pdf
104. Toni Irving, “Decoding Black Women: Policing Practices and
Rape Prosecution on the Streets of Philadelphia.” NWSA Journal 20,
no. 2 (2008): 100–120, accessed September 20, 2022, http://www.
jstor.org/stable/40071277; Jeffrey J. Pokorak, “Rape as a Badge of
Slavery: The Legal History of, and Remedies for, Prosecutorial Race-
of-Victim Charging Disparities,” Nevada Law Journal 7:1 (2006)
accessed May 10, 2022, https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/nlj/vol7/
iss1/2/; Reema Sood, “Biases Behind Sexual Assault: A Thirteenth
Amendment Solution to Under-Enforcement of the Rape of Black
Women,” University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion,
Gender and Class 45 (2018) accessed May 10, 2022 https://
digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/rrgc/vol18/iss2/9/.
105. See Terrion Williamson’s Scandalize My Name: Black Feminist
Practice and the Making of Black Social Life (New York: Fordham
University Press, 2017) for analysis of the ways serial murders of
Black women and children that went unacknowledged for years by
law enforcement in Atlanta, GA and Peoria, IL.
106. “Black survivors and sexual trauma,” Time’s Up, May 20, 2020,
https://timesupfoundation.org/black-survivors-and-sexual-trauma/;
Beth Richie, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s
Endnotes
Prison Nation. (New York: New York University Press, 2012).
107. In 2012 Marissa Alexander, a Black Florida resident, fired a
warning shot to keep her abusive ex-husband from approaching
her. Despite Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law, she was convicted and
imprisoned for aggravated assault, even though her ex-husband
admitted to being violent toward her. See coverage of her eventual
release, five years later, Christine Hauser, “Florida Woman whose
Stand Your Ground defense was rejected is released.” New York
Times, February 7, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/us/
marissa-alexander-released-stand-your-ground.html
108. Jessica Shaw and Hae Nim Lee, “Race and the criminal justice
system response to sexual assault: A systemic review.” American
Journal of Community Psychology 64 (2019): 256-278.
109. Amber Simmons, “Why Are We So Mad? The truth behind
‘Angry Black Women’ and their legal invisibility as victims of
domestic violence,” Harvard Black Letter Law Journal 36 (2020):47-
71, accessed September 30, 2022. https://harvardblackletter.org/
wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/07/HBK105_crop.pdf
110. Simmons, “Why Are We So Mad?” 61.
111. Michelle S. Jacobs, “The Violent State: Black Women's
Invisible Struggle Against Police Violence.” William and Mary
Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice, 24 no.1 (2017): 39-100,
accessed September 30, 2022, https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?article=1828andcontext=facultypub
112. Movement 4 Black Lives, “End the War On Black Women.”
https://m4bl.org/policy-platforms/end-the-war-black-women/
113. Minnesota Women’s Foundation, “2022 Report on the Status
of Women and Girls.”
114. Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Andrea J. Ritchie, Rachel Anspach,
Rachel Gilmer and Luke Harris, “Say Her Name: Resisting Police
Brutality Against Black Women,” 2015. Retrieved September
6, 2022 from https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_
scholarship/3226; Jacobs, “The Violent State.”
115. Washington Post, “Fatal Force,” https://www.washingtonpost.
com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/
65

116. Based on FiveThrityEight’s analysis of the same Washington
Post data on police shootings in “Fatal Force.” Alex Samuels,
Dhrumil Mehta, and Anna Wiederkerh,“Why Black Women Are Often
Missing From Conversations About Police Violence.” FiveThirtyEight.
com, May 6 2021, accessed September 20, 2022,
117. Samuels et al, “Why Black Women are Often Missing from
Conversations about Police Violence.”
118. See, for example, Travis L. Dixon’s summary of research on
media and Black representation in Rebecca A. Lind (Ed.), Race/
Gender/Class/Media: Considering Diversity Across Audiences,
Content, and Producers (New York: Routledge, 2019), “Black
Criminality 2.0: The Persistence of Stereotypes in the 21st Century”;
also see Squires’ overview of the topic in African Americans and the
Media.
119. Kristine Liao and Craig Helmsetter, “Minnesota’s Diverse
Communities: News Consumption and Trust in the Media.” APM
Research Lab, October 11, 2021, https://www.apmresearchlab.org/
mdc-survey/news-media
120. Crenshaw et al, “Say Her Name;” Jacobs, “The Violent State.”
121. Jordan Martin, “Breonna Taylor: Transforming A Hashtag Into
Defunding The Police.” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
111, no. 4 (2021): 995–1030, accessed September 20, 2022,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/48633484.
122. Crenshaw et al, “Say Her Name.”
123. Ibid.
124. Jessica Shaw and HaeNim Lee, “Race and the Criminal Justice
System Response to Sexual Assault: A Systematic Review.” American
Journal of Community Psychology, 64 no.1-2 (2019):,255–276,
https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12334
125. Pokorak, “Rape as a Badge of Slavery.”
126. Study cited by Simmons, “Why Are We So Mad,” 63.
127. Jennifer Nash, “Black Women and Rape: a Review of the
Literature.” Brandeis University, Feminist Sexual Ethics Project, June
12, 2009, accessed September 22, 2022, https://www.brandeis.
edu/projects/fse/slavery/united-states/slav-us-articles/nash2009.pdf
Endnotes
128. Claire Kebodeaux, “Rape Sentencing: We’re all mad about
Brock Turner, but now what?” Kansas Journal of Law and Public
Policy 26 no 1 (2017): 30-47. https://lawjournal.ku.edu/wp-content/
uploads/2020/08/Kebodeaux-V27I1.pdf
129. Jada Moss, “The Forgotten Victims of Missing White Woman
Syndrome: An Examination of Legal Measures That Contribute to
the Lack of Search and Recovery of Missing Black Girls and Women,”
William and Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice 25
no.3 (2019): 737-762
130. Zach Sommer, “Missing White Woman Syndrome: An
Empirical Analysis Of Race And Gender Disparities In Online News
Coverage Of Missing Persons,” The Journal of Criminal Law and
Criminology 106, no. 2 (2016):275–314, http://www.jstor.org/
stable/45163263.
131. Moss,“The Forgotten Victims of Missing White Woman
Syndrome.”
132. Seong-Jae Min and John C. Feaster, ”Missing Children in
National News Coverage: Racial and Gender Representations
of Missing Children Cases,” Communication Research Reports,
27, no. 3, (2010): 207-216, accessed October 3, 2022, DOI:
10.1080/08824091003776289
133. Danielle C. Slakoff and Henry F. Fradella, “Media Messages
Surrounding Missing Women and Girls: The ‘Missing White Woman
Syndrome’ and Other Factors That Influence Newsworthiness.”
Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law and Society 20 no.3 (2019):80-
102, accessed October 3, 2022, https://ccjls.scholasticahq.com/
article/11134-media-messages-surrounding-missing-women-and-
girls-the-missing-white-woman-syndrome-and-other-factors-that-
influence-newsworthiness
134. Sommer, “Missing White Women Syndrome;” Moss, “The
forgotten victims.”
135. Crenshaw et. al., “Say Her Name,” 2015; Moss.
136. Crenshaw et. al, “Say Her Name.” For a longer historical
overview of this phenomenon, see Paula Giddings, When And
Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in
America, 2nd ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
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137. All quotations are identified by number or focus group
session to protect the anonymity of participants.Quotations from
lived experience participants from the first Zen Bin focus group
(ZEN BIN 1) and the Domestic Abuse Project (DAP 1) are not
differentiated due to a lack of video recording to assist transcribers
to distinguish specific speakers during the conversation. In all other
cases, transcribers were able to clearly identify speakers with the
combination of audio and video recordings.
138. To protect the anonymity of the Key Informants, quotations
are listed with their unique ID numbers and the professional
category that best describes their work. The professional categories
are: Service Provider–Trafficking, Service Provider–Sexual Violence/
Endnotes
Domestic Violence, Service Provider–Legal Advocate, Legal
Professional, Law Enforcement Officer/Support, Data Professional,
Child Welfare Professional, Education Professional, Housing
Professional, and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives
Office.
139. Adultification is viewing Black girls and children as older than
they are, systematically forcing them into adult roles, procedures,
and punishments before they are adults. Oftentimes, authorities
do not see Black girls as children, even when they are experiencing
violence, including sex trafficking and abuse.
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Previous Task Forces and Reports
In this appendix, we highlight the work of previous task forces and reports submitted to the State of Minnesota that are in accord with our report’s
findings and recommendations. We highlight three recent reports: The House Select Committee on Racial Justice (Select Committee); the Parallel
Report Pertaining to the Rights of Women and Girls of Color on US Compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination (CERD Report); and the Safe Harbor for All Report (Safe Harbor).
Recommendation I: Resources for Black women and girls
Many of the recommendations from the House Select Committee on
Racial Justice Report to the Legislature speak to existing and new ways
funding and contracts could be directed to: initiatives created by Black
women and girls; community organizations trusted by Black women;
support Black women entrepreneurs, healers, and others who want to
scale up efforts to serve Black women and girls who survive violence.
These include:
• Enforce Chapter 16C and require 15 percent of all
public contracting to BIPOC businesses, 32 percent
workforce goals on all public contracting*
• Streamline the bidding process, redesign the request for
proposal process, and establish processes to break down artificial
barriers to small and minority-owned businesses. Unbundling
larger projects and contracts into multiple packages for more
participation. Remove unnecessary contract specifications*
• Leverage bank deposits – compact with financial institutions
accepting public deposits to increase loans in low-income areas
and to partner with BIPOC organizations serving businesses
to help bring capital and capacity to BIPOC businesses*
• Establish a $1 billion BIPOC Capital Fund and identify a
dedicated revenue stream that will fund BIPOC activities
that build the economic development infrastructure needed
for wealth creation, which includes and not limited to:
• Grants
• Equity
• Loans
• Technical assistance
• Cultural malls, corridors, destinations, districts
• Capacity development of organizations
serving BIPOC businesses and workers
• Establish a $25 million loan guarantee program backed
by existing assets, to support bank lending to BIPOC
businesses and development projects (for two tracks,
businesses with less than $250,000 sales/revenue
and greater than $250,000 in sales/revenue)*
Appendix
• Fund career pathways and opportunity skills/
occupation pathways to help low-income BIPOC
workers increase their earnings and skills
• Invest in the Women of Color Opportunity Act
• Allocate community resources to support community
engagement before the state commits to development
projects that impact respective communities on the
front end and throughout the life cycle of projects
• Provide grants for community-based organizations
where DHS would contract with community-based
agencies who serve Black children and families to provide
community-specified services for family preservation,
relative care engagement, and reunification services
The CERD Report also recognized the need to center the experiences
and knowledge of Black women and girls in the development and
implementation of new services, and resource allocation:
• Provide culturally-specific support and resources for
marginalized women and children that is either led by or
developed in consultation with the groups that directly serve
these populations and best understand their needs.
• Expand efforts to identify vulnerable and at-risk women and
children and consult with those adults and organizations who
serve them to best understand and address their needs.
Likewise, the Safe Harbor Report valued diversifying the ranks of
those who provide services and ensuring adequate funding for
those services:
• Fund grantees at a level that allows them
to meet Safe Harbor’s needs.
• Improve the diversity within the Safe Harbor
Network and provision of services.
* Denotes a recommendation that requires no new funding, according to the Select
Committee on Racial Justice Report.
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Recommendations II and III: Training and Hiring
Our recommendations on training and hiring resonate with suggestions from the Select Committee, CERD, and Safe Harbor Reports:
From the Select Committee:
• Mandate training for teachers, paraprofessionals, and
administrators in anti-racist, culturally responsive,
trauma-informed, and restorative practices
• For districts with the most significant racial
disparities, build protections for Teachers of Color and
Indigenous teachers to improve retention rates
• Fund the hiring of school support professionals in order to meet
recommended staff-to-student ratios for school counselors,
social workers, behavior specialists, psychologists, and nurses
• The Dignity in Pregnancy and Childbirth Act would
implement anti-racism training associated with the leading
causes of preventable deaths. The act would also expand
the Maternal Mortality Review Committee to include
morbidity and expand membership to include surviving
family members or individuals that experienced maternal
morbidity. Develop a request for proposal program for
medical schools and nursing schools to increase training on
disparities in maternal and infant mortality and morbidity
• Mental Health Consultation Pilot for Mandated Reporters:
a school-based mental health consultation pilot for
mandated reporters. The purpose is to provide mental
health rapid consultation for mandated reporters to
ensure reports of child maltreatment are made based
on statutory requirements rather than biases
• Strengthen legal representation for removal—require a
description of actual agency efforts, including an agency’s
assessment of a child safety and alternative family or kin-
based arrangements, as part of a court order for removal
• Develop a BIPOC family mentorship program where
communities with the greatest disparity in out-of-home
placement have access to representative family mentors to
support them in navigating the child protection process
Appendix
• Eliminate the use of race-based medicine in medical
school curriculum and medical practice
• Increase doula reimbursement rates and invest in recruiting
and retaining doulas from BIPOC communities
• Ensure policies allow doulas to be present with
pregnant and postpartum women at all medical
visits and procedures if desired by the mother
From the CERD Report
• Enact legislative measures to ensure all women have
access to culturally competent health services.
• Develop, following comprehensive studies and consultations
with affected populations, culturally appropriate training
and reforms of relevant academic policies to address
discrimination against Black girls in terms of school
punishments, self-expression, and other policies.
• Provide training to law enforcement and other
professionals to ensure cases are properly
identified and labeled as “missing persons.”
• Conduct culturally appropriate and gender-sensitive
training for media and encourage the expansion of
media coverage of cases of missing and murdered
Black and Indigenous women and children
• Provide ongoing and culturally specific training for
those working with families, in consultation with or led
by members of the Black and Indigenous communities
and organizations that serve these communities.
From the Safe Harbor Report
• Provide consistent and mandatory trainings for everyone
who works with sex trafficked and exploited youth.
• Develop cross-sector trainings, agreements and protocols.
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Recommendation IV: Coordination
The CERD and Safe Harbor Reports also identify coordination,
resources, and awareness raising as key for increasing the safety of
Black women and girls:
From CERD:
• Ensure law enforcement agencies have adequate
resources for dedicated missing persons units, including
for Black and Native women and children.
• Enact legislation to better coordinate
investigations and prosecution of cases between
state, federal, and tribal jurisdictions.
From SAFE HARBOR:
• Increase awareness of Safe Harbor and the services it provides.
• Develop cross-sector trainings, agreements and protocols.
• Implement Safe Harbor for All, a strategic plan
to expand Safe Harbor to all adult victims and
survivors of sex trafficking and exploitation.
Appendix
Recommendation V: Housing
Many of our recommendations on housing support overlap with
suggested actions from both the House Select Committee on Racial
Justice Report and the CERD report on MMAAW.
From the Select Committee:
• 5 percent of funds in the State investment portfolio should be
invested in BIPOC real estate development projects such as
mixed-use developments and affordable housing projects
• Allocate low-income tax credit (LIHTC) and housing
funds from federal and other sources to BIPOC-led
affordable housing and homeownership projects
• Increase home improvement support for both
owner-occupied homes and rental properties
• Provide attorneys for public housing eviction actions
• Implement a security deposit cap for so tenants will be required
to pay no more than a single month’s rent as a security deposit
• Develop uniform screening criteria guidelines for
applicants related to rental, criminal, and credit history
• Create a just cause policy for termination of tenancy
• Develop an advance notice of sale policy for rental properties
From the CERD Report
• Ensure effective implementation of the Fair Housing Act and
support ongoing monitoring of its implementation to ensure it
is applied without discrimination or with discriminatory impact.
• Provide adequate funding for organizations specializing
in providing housing and other resources to survivor
victims and marginalized women and children.
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 Appendix

Dear Legislative Leaders, & Commissioner of Public Safety John Harrington,

The Minnesota Task Force Missing and Murdered African American Women acknowledge and address the historic, persistent, and human
rights violations and abuses found within our state. With bipartisan support, signed into action by Governor Walz in 2021, this first in the
Nation initiative, Task Force is intent on addressing the systemic causes behind the historic violence against African American women and
girls. This report to the Minnesota Legislature, which reflects the collective work of 13 Task Force members and 8 community advisory board
members, calls for complete legislative and social changes with resources to remedy the crisis that has shattered African American communi-
ties across our state and this country for far too long.

This report to the Minnesota Legislature includes solutions that aim to reduce and end violence against African American Women & Girls, in
Minnesota. It serves as a road map for the Commissioner of Public Safety, other state agencies, and organizations that provide legal, social,
and other public services throughout Minnesota. Information presented in this report reflects the truths of everyday black women living
& thriving here in Minnesota, survivors of violence, family members, community members, government agencies, lawmakers, advocates,
and experts. It was compiled a year of public hearings, community dialogues, interviews with experts, and evidence gathering activities. It
delivers 6 overarching recommendations for systemic and community change directed at government, institutions, social service providers,
industries, and all Minnesotans.

The proposed recommendations recognize and consider the multigenerational and intergenerational trauma and marginalization of African
American communities in the form of poverty; insecure housing and homelessness; and barriers to education, employment, health & emer-
gency care, as well as appropriate culturally responsive support. This report identifies and addresses coordination across agencies to increase
accessibility of services and responsiveness. We begin the path to reform with recognizing that the historic violence against Indigenous
communities is more than a criminal justice/public safety issue. It reiterates the importance of community, state, and county relationships,
and the necessity for data sharing in terms of accessibility, accountability, and uniformity. The report also addresses the need to provide more
help and resources to African American women, girls, and their families who are at most risk of being murdered or experiencing violence and
exploitation; these individuals are often significantly involved with child welfare, criminal justice, and other systems that therefore have an
opportunity to help.

This historic report would not have been possible if not for the devotion, perseverance, and guidance of Kathryn Weeks and Rebecca Rabb
from the Department of Public Safety; Dr. Brittany Lewis, and her colleagues from Research in Action including Dr. Catherine Squares, Healer
Kamisha Johnson of Amani Healing Services & Carolyn Szczepanski, independent consultants. As well as the Community partnerships that
includes RIA Partners; Dr. Lauren Martin from U of M Research, The Advocates for Human Rights, The Zen Bin,The Domestic Abuse Project,
Anna Marie’s Alliance, The Brittany Clardy Foundation, The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, and MNCASA. And with sincere everlasting
gratitude for the participation of all our Committee Chairs and Advisory board Community experts as well. As Chair of the Minnesota MMAAW
Task Force, I uphold that the Minnesota Legislature, Governor Walz and Lt. Governor Flanagan, the Commissioner of Public Safety, and all
pertaining governmental agencies continue to collaborate and address this issue with a good heart to warrant the successful implementation
of the recommendations found within this report.

Respectfully,

Lakeisha Lee,
The Brittany Clardy Foundation Co- Founder
MMAAW Task Force Chair

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 Appendix

MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY

Office of the Commissioner

445 Minnesota Street • Suite 1000 • Saint Paul, Minnesota 55101-5100
Phone: 651.201.7160 • Fax: 651.297.5728 • TTY: 651.282.6555
www.dps.state.mn.us

Dear Gov. Tim Walz, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Minnesota Legislators:

Alcohol
The Department of Public Safety is pleased to submit the Missing and Murdered African American
and Gambling Women (MMAAW) report for your review. This report is compiled and published in accordance
Enforcement with Minnesota Session Laws First Spec. Sess., Chapter 11, Article 2, Section 50.
Bureau of
Criminal The Minnesota Legislature led by Rep. Ruth Richardson developed the MMAAW Task Force during
Apprehension
the 2021 legislative session to examine and report on a number of issues, including:
Driver  Systemic causes of violence against African American women and girls.
and Vehicle
Services  Policies, practices and institutions that perpetuate this violence.
Emergency  Measures needed to address violence against African American women and girls.
Communication  Measures needed to help victims, their families and their communities.
Networks
 Appropriate methods of tracking and collecting data.
Homeland
Security and
Emergency The task force found that African American women and girls are subjected to high rates of
Management kidnapping and abduction, sexual and domestic abuse, and sex trafficking due to a history of
Minnesota patriarchy and structural racism. African American women and girls are also almost three times more
State Patrol likely to be murdered than their white peers. Even though African American women and girls
Office of comprise only 7 percent of Minnesota’s population, they represent 40 percent of domestic violence
Communications victims.
Office of
Justice Programs Minnesota has the opportunity to create a legacy of meaningful change for our African American
Office of women and girls. The task force’s recommendations will serve as a starting point for that change,
Pipeline Safety including:
Office of  Funding housing and other spaces and resources to serve African American women and girls.
Traffic Safety  Developing effective culturally appropriate trainings and professional education for
State Fire professionals including peace officers, prosecutors and victim services representatives.
Marshal  Recruiting and hiring more African American staff including peace officers, prosecutors, and
victim services representatives.
 Establishing an office to support missing and murdered African American women and girls.

With commitment and investment towards implementation of these and other task force
recommendations, we can truly impact lives of African American women and girls for generations.

Sincerely,

John Harrington
Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Public Safety

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

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